Ram Charan and Others v. Sukhram and Others
- Vaishnavi Majji
- Nov 4
- 2 min read
On July 17, 2025, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India delivered a landmark judgment in Ram Charan and Others v. Sukhram and Others (2025 INSC 865), redefining the scope of succession rights for women belonging to Scheduled Tribes.
The appeal arose from a partition suit filed by the heirs of Dhaiya, a tribal woman of the Gond community, seeking an equal share in the ancestral property of her father, Bhajju alias Bhanjan Gond.
The Trial Court and subsequent Appellate Courts had dismissed the claim on the ground that neither the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 nor any custom proven allowed female succession in that tribal context.
The Hon’ble Supreme Court clarified that, while HSA does not apply automatically to Scheduled Tribe members unless notified, the absence of a proven custom excluding women from inheritance means that denying them a share amounts to discrimination under Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
The judgment emphasises that the burden of proving an exclusionary custom lies with those relying on it and the Courts cannot rely on assumptions or stereotypes.
Significantly, the Hon’ble Court held that where neither statutory personal law nor customary law has been established to exclude women, the modes of justice, equity and good conscience fill the gap.
In this case, the absence of any custom denying rights to Dhaiya or her heirs meant that they were entitled to equal share as her legal heirs. The judgment sets aside the lower court decrees and remits the matter for partition accordingly.
This decision marks a major step for gender justice in tribal succession law. It upholds the principle that gender cannot be the basis for presuming exclusion in inheritance, and it reinforces that equality under the Constitution prevails in contexts not covered by statutory inheritance laws.
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