Who will succeed to the self-acquired property of a Hindu male dying intestate leaving mother, brother and married daughter?

The Survivors and Their Classification

The three survivors are:

• Mother (M) — expressly listed in Class I of the Schedule

• Brother (B) — placed in Entry II of Class II (alongside sons' daughters' son, sons' daughters' daughter, and sister)

• Married daughter (D) — expressly listed in Class I of the Schedule

The answer hinges entirely on one foundational rule laid down in Section 8 read with Section 9 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. Section 8 provides that the property of a male Hindu dying intestate shall devolve, firstly, upon the heirs specified in Class I of the Schedule. Section 9 provides that among heirs in Class I and Class II, preference is determined strictly by class — the entirety of Class I must fail before any Class II heir can enter the picture.

The Rule of Absolute Preference

The brother occupies Entry II of Class II. He can inherit only upon the failure of every single heir specified in Class I. The moment even one Class I heir survives, the brother is completely excluded. Here, not one but two Class I heirs are present — the mother and the married daughter. The brother, therefore, receives nothing. He does not inherit even a fraction of the estate. The Supreme Court in Satya v. Urmila (AIR 1970 SC 1714) unambiguously confirmed this position — heirs of Class I, when present, wholly exclude the heirs of Class II.

An Important Historical Note: The Mother's Placement

It is worth pausing to appreciate the significance of the mother's inclusion in Class I. Under the classical Mitakshara law, the mother occupied a position after the father in the order of succession. The Hindu Succession Bill of 1954, in its original form, placed both the father and the mother in Category I of Class II heirs together. However, Parliament made a deliberate and progressive choice to elevate the mother to Class I while leaving the father in Class II. This was a recognition of the principle of natural love and affection and a conscious departure from the older patriarchal hierarchy. As a result, under this Act, the mother is placed on equal footing with the widow, the son, and the daughter in the very first class of preferred heirs. The father, interestingly, remains in Class II, Entry I — and even he would have been excluded in the present case, had he been alive, by the presence of the two Class I heirs.

Distribution Among the Two Class I Heirs

Having established that only the mother and the married daughter inherit, the question of the quantum of their shares must be resolved by Section 10 of the Act. The rule under Section 10 is clear: when Class I heirs succeed, they take per capita, that is, in equal shares. The mother and the daughter are both living heirs in Class I; neither represents a predeceased person's branch. Therefore, each takes one share.

The marital status of the daughter is entirely irrelevant. The Act makes this explicit — a daughter, whether married or unmarried, inherits equally. The old notion that a married daughter, having gone to her husband's family, loses her inheritance rights in the parental estate was swept away by the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, and reinforced categorically by the 2005 Amendment which even made her a coparcener in the Mitakshara joint family.

The Final Distribution

The entire estate devolves in equal shares upon the mother and the married daughter. The brother stands excluded, not because of any personal disability, but because the law assigns him a place in the queue that he can never reach so long as any Class I heir survives. He is not deemed dead, nor is he disqualified in the technical sense — he simply has no right to succeed when the Class I door is open to others.