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The Allahabad High Court issued notice on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of  Section 108, 109, 110 and 112 of the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code 2006 for being arbitrary and discriminatory against the rights of women with respect to succession in agricultural land in UP.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Yadav and Justice Vivek Agarwal has sought response from the State Government within a period of 6 weeks.

The petition filed by Skand Bajpai says that Section 108 (2) of the Code draws an arbitrary and discriminative distinction between “unmarried daughter” and “married daughters” by listing the former in sub clause (a) and the latter in sub clause (c) of clause (2) and as such married daughters are given a third grade treatment which violates their rights of equality, dignity and life.

It has further been submitted that that sub clause (iii) of Clause (1) of Section 108 of the Code discriminates against the rights of widows as individuals and arbitrarily classifies them as one share holder which is violative of their right to equality and right to life as individual successors or survivors.

The petitioner has said that section 110 lays down an arbitrarily preferential treatment favourable to male heirs and unmarried daughters over married daughters.

Furthermore Section 112 bars the interest of co-tenure-holders to be passed by survivorship on the death of a male Bhumidar, Asami or Government lessee in case a widow remarries.

It has been submitted that these provisions “arbitrarily tilt the rights of inheritance in favour of male heirs and discriminates the female heir solely on the basis on their marital status”.

The petitioner further pressing on the discriminatory nature of the provisions has submitted that “There is no bar on inheritance on a male heir under Code if he chooses to marry or remarry and such bar on female heirs is oppressive and suffers from fixation of stereotype morality.”

In the light of the above grounds the petitioner has prayed that Section 108, 109, 110 and 112 of the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code 2006 be quashed for being violative of Article 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution.

Case Title: Skand Bajpai vs State of Uttar Pradesh (PIL) No. - 856 of 2021