The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that a daughter can claim equal share in parental property irrespective of when she was born and if her father was alive or not at the time of the 2005 amendment to the Hindu Succession Act, Bar and Bench reported.

A three-judge bench of Justices Arun Mishra, S Abdul Nazeer and MR Shah said the amendments can have a retrospective effect. “Once a daughter always a daughter...son is a son till he is married,” Justice Mishra said. “The daughter shall remain a coparcener [one who shares equally with others in inheritance of an undivided joint family property] throughout life, irrespective of whether her father is alive or not. Daughters must be given equal rights as sons, daughter remains a loving daughter throughout life.”

The judgement is crucial as it sets aside a clutch of previous decisions by the Supreme Court that said daughters can have coparcenary right only if both the father and the daughter were alive as on September 9, 2005, when the amendment was notified, according to News18.

The judges asked the courts concerned, where several matters remained pending due to the top court judgement, to dispose them within six months.