BLS LLB 5 Years Sem 7 Family Law II 2025-26 Question Paper with Solutions

Under section 3 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, any act, omission, commission or conduct of the respondent is domestic violence if it harms or injures or endangers the health, safety, life, limb or well-being, whether mental or physical, of the aggrieved person, or tends to do so.

The section then names four heads: physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse, and economic abuse. It also covers harassment or injury to the aggrieved person to coerce her or any person related to her to meet an unlawful demand for dowry or other property.

Under section 30 of the Special Marriage Act, 1954, where a marriage has been dissolved by a decree of divorce, either party may marry again when there is no right of appeal against the decree, or when the time for appealing has expired without an appeal having been presented, or when an appeal has been presented but has been dismissed.

Section 21 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 defines "dependants" in relation to a deceased Hindu as the following relatives of the deceased: his or her father; mother; widow, so long as she does not remarry; son, or the son of a predeceased son, or the son of a predeceased son of a predeceased son, while a minor and if the earlier generations are dead; unmarried daughter, and the unmarried daughter of a predeceased son or of a predeceased son's predeceased son on the same footing; widowed daughter, if she cannot maintain herself out of her own or her husband's or her son's estate; any widow of a son or of a son's son, so long as she does not remarry and cannot maintain herself; his illegitimate son while a minor and his illegitimate unmarried daughter.

Section 6, as substituted by the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 with effect from 9 September 2005, provides that in a joint Hindu family governed by the Mitakshara law, the daughter of a coparcener shall by birth become a coparcener in her own right in the same manner as the son, shall have the same rights and be subject to the same liabilities in the coparcenary property as a son.

It further provides that on the death of a Hindu, his interest in the coparcenary property devolves by testamentary or intestate succession under this Act and not by survivorship, the share being ascertained by a notional partition as if it had taken place immediately before his death.

2. Representation. He represents the family in suits and in dealings with third parties, and a decree against him in that capacity binds the other members.
3. Contracts and debts. He may contract debts for family purposes and for the family business, and such a debt binds the shares of all the coparceners, including minors.
4. Alienation. This is his most limited power. He may alienate coparcenary property, that is sell or mortgage it, only for legal necessity (apatkale), for the benefit of the estate (kutumbarthe), or for indispensable religious or pious purposes (dharmarthe). The three heads come from Vijnaneshwara's commentary. The classic statement of legal necessity is in Hunoomanpersaud Panday v. Mussumat Babooee Munraj Koonweree (1856, Privy Council), where it was held that the manager's power is limited and the lender must make bona fide enquiry into the necessity.

Hindu law developed through commentaries and digests on the Smritis, and the differences between those commentaries produced the two schools: Mitakshara and Dayabhaga.

Mitakshara is Vijnaneshwara's commentary on the Yajnavalkya Smriti, written in the eleventh century. It prevails throughout India except Bengal and Assam. It is subdivided by local usage into four sub-schools:

1. Benares school, over most of north India;
2. Mithila school, in north Bihar;
3. Maharashtra or Bombay school, in western India, which gave women the widest rights of the four;
4. Dravida or Madras school, in the south.

Dayabhaga is Jimutavahana's digest, written in the twelfth century, and prevails in Bengal and Assam. It has no sub-schools.

The differences that matter.

A Uniform Civil Code means one set of civil laws governing marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption, guardianship, succession and inheritance for all citizens, in place of the separate personal laws that now apply according to religion.

Article 44 of the Constitution, a Directive Principle, provides that "the State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India". Being a Directive Principle it is not enforceable by any court under Article 37, but it is fundamental in the governance of the country.

The case for it. Personal laws differ in ways that touch equality before the law under Article 14 and the prohibition of discrimination on the ground of sex under Article 15; uniform rules would simplify litigation; and a common code would strengthen national integration and secularism, which does not require religion to govern civil relations.

The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 disqualifies an heir in only a few narrowly drawn cases, and section 28 makes clear that there are no others.

Section 25, murder. A person who commits murder or abets the commission of murder is disqualified from inheriting the property of the person murdered, or any other property in furtherance of the succession to which he committed or abetted the murder. The rule rests on public policy, that a man may not profit from his own crime, and the Supreme Court applied it in this spirit in Vellikannu v. R. Singaperumal (2005), holding that a son who murdered his father could not take even by survivorship, and that his own son could not claim through him either.

Section 26, descendants of a convert. Where a Hindu has ceased to be a Hindu by conversion to another religion, the children born to him or her after such conversion, and their descendants, are disqualified from inheriting the property of any of their Hindu relatives, unless they are Hindus at the time the succession opens.

• Section 23, which was not a disqualification but a restriction preventing a female heir from claiming partition of a dwelling house wholly occupied by the family until the male heirs chose to divide, was omitted by the same Amendment.

However, after receiving the property, Raghu started neglecting his father, refusing to provide him with proper care and even denying him access to a portion of the house. In light of The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, answer the following questions:

(a) Ram has a remedy, and the gift can be set aside.

Ram is 75, so he is a senior citizen under section 2(h) and also a parent under section 2(d). He transferred the house by way of gift subject to the condition that Raghu would provide him with basic amenities, and Raghu has refused. That is exactly the case section 23 was written for.

On the denial of access to part of the house, the Supreme Court in Urmila Dixit v. Sunil Sharan Dixit (2 January 2025) held that the authorities under section 23 have power not only to cancel the transfer but also to order eviction of the transferee and restore possession to the senior citizen, and that a Division Bench which read the section strictly had taken "a strict view of a beneficial legislation". The Court applied Sudesh Chhikara v. Ramti Devi (2022), where it had held that section 23 is attracted only if the transfer was in fact subject to the condition of maintenance. Here the condition is written into the deed, so Sudesh Chhikara is satisfied on its own terms.

(b) Who must maintain a senior citizen.

• For a parent or grandparent, the obligation is on the children as defined in section 2(a), that is son, daughter, grandson and grand-daughter, but not a minor.

(a) Not yet.

The CARA route is governed by the Adoption Regulations, 2022, framed under section 68(c) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. Regulation 5(3) provides that no child shall be given in adoption to a couple unless they have at least two years of stable marital relationship, except in cases of relative adoption or step-parent adoption.

4. Marital status is otherwise no bar. Any person may adopt irrespective of marital status and whether or not they have a biological son or daughter. A single female may adopt a child of any gender; a single male may not adopt a girl child.
5. Age ceilings, reckoned as on the date of registration:

For a couple the composite age, that is the sum of both ages, is counted. The age criteria do not apply to relative adoptions or adoption by a step-parent.

1. Couples with two or more children are considered only for special needs children and hard to place children, unless the child is a relative or a step-child.
2. The Home Study Report must be revalidated every three years.

Pregnancy per alium means pregnancy by another, that is that the bride was carrying the child of a man other than the bridegroom at the date of the marriage. The ground rests on a fraud of the gravest kind, because it puts into the husband's family a child who is not his and who would, if born during the marriage, be presumed legitimate under section 112 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (now section 116 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023).

Section 12(2)(b) allows the petition only if all three of the following are satisfied:

1. the petitioner was at the time of the marriage ignorant of the facts alleged;
2. proceedings are instituted within one year from the date of the marriage, in the case of a marriage solemnised after the commencement of the Act; and
3. marital intercourse with the consent of the petitioner has not taken place since the discovery by the petitioner of the existence of the ground.

(a) S1, S2 and AW take, in equal shares. M and F take nothing.

Succession to a Hindu female dying intestate is governed by section 15, and the shares by section 16.

Section 15(1)(a) puts in the first entry the sons and daughters, including the children of any predeceased son or daughter, and the husband. Rule 1 of section 16 provides that those in one entry are preferred to those in any succeeding entry, and that those included in the same entry take simultaneously.

Aruna leaves two sons and a husband. All three are in entry (a), so each takes one-third.

Second: apply the general order in section 15(1). Entry (a) is "the sons and daughters (including the children of any predeceased son or daughter) and the husband". The sons are dead, but on the facts given they left no children, so no one takes through them. The husband AW is still in entry (a), and being in the first entry he takes to the exclusion of all others.

AW therefore takes the whole of the gifted property. The father and mother in entry (c) again take nothing.

For full marks, cover: who may appoint under each of the four sub-sections of section 9; the crucial rule in section 9(2) that a father's appointment fails if he predeceases the mother; that the appointment operates only after the death of the appointing parent; the powers under section 9(5) and their limits; section 12, that no guardian may be appointed for the minor's undivided interest; section 13, welfare paramount; and section 9(6), that the right ceases on a girl's marriage.

A testamentary guardian is a guardian appointed by will. He is the second of the three kinds of guardian recognised by section 4(b) of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, the others being the natural guardian and the guardian appointed or declared by a court; section 11 recognises the de facto guardian only to shut him out of dealings with the minor's property.

Who may appoint. Section 9 gives the power to four persons, and in every case only to a person entitled to act as the natural guardian.

When the appointment takes effect. Section 9(5) says the guardian appointed by will has the right to act after the death of the minor's father or mother, as the case may be. A testamentary guardian therefore never displaces a living natural guardian. This is the point on which most problem questions turn, and it is the reason for section 9(2): so long as the mother is alive and entitled to act, the father's nominee has nothing to do.

Powers of a testamentary guardian.

Section 9(5) gives him the right "to exercise all the rights of a natural guardian under this Act to such extent and subject to such restrictions, if any, as are specified in this Act and in the will". So his powers are the powers of a natural guardian under section 8, cut down by whatever the will says.

Under section 8 he may:

• do all acts necessary or reasonable and proper for the benefit of the minor or for the realisation, protection or benefit of the minor's estate; but he can in no case bind the minor by a personal covenant;

• Section 9(6). Where the minor is a girl, the right of the testamentary guardian ceases on her marriage, because under section 6(c) the husband becomes her natural guardian.
• Section 13. In the appointment or declaration of any person as guardian by a court, the welfare of the minor is the paramount consideration, and no person is entitled to guardianship if the court is of opinion that his guardianship will not be for the minor's welfare. A testamentary guardian holds by the will, not by an order of court; but if his conduct is against the child's welfare, the court can remove him and appoint another under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890.

Characteristics.

1. Creation of law, not of contract. A coparcenary cannot be created by agreement. The only exception is that strangers may be brought in by adoption, and property may be thrown into the common stock by blending.
2. Unity of ownership. The whole body owns the whole property; no coparcener can say that he owns any defined part of it until partition.
3. Fluctuating interest. A coparcener's share increases on a death and decreases on a birth. It becomes fixed only when partition is demanded.
4. Right by birth. A coparcener takes an interest the moment he or she is born; nothing needs to be done to confer it.
5. Community of interest and unity of possession. Every coparcener is entitled to joint possession and enjoyment; no one can exclude another.
6. Four degrees. The great-great-grandson is not a coparcener while all three intervening generations are alive, but he becomes one as the line above him dies out.
7. Devolution. Formerly by survivorship. Since 9 September 2005 the interest of a deceased coparcener devolves by testamentary or intestate succession under section 6, on a notional partition.

9. Right to become karta if he is the senior-most, and since Sujata Sharma v. Manu Gupta (2016), affirmed by a larger bench of the Delhi High Court in December 2023, that includes the eldest daughter.
10. Right to make a will of his undivided interest, expressly recognised by the Explanation to section 30 of the Hindu Succession Act.

Duties of a coparcener.

1. To allow every other coparcener joint possession and not to exclude anyone.
2. Not to alienate coparcenary property except within the limits allowed to a karta.
3. To account for what he takes beyond his share, and to bring into hotchpot at partition anything he has received out of the joint funds.
4. To maintain the members of the family entitled to maintenance out of the joint property, including unmarried daughters, widows and aged parents.
5. To discharge the family's lawful debts out of the joint property, subject to the limits of the doctrine of pious obligation, which the 2005 Amendment abolished for debts contracted after 9 September 2005.
6. To preserve the property, not to waste it, and to render accounts on partition if he has been managing.

An agnate is a person related to the intestate wholly through males, by blood or adoption; a cognate is related to him not wholly through males. Both definitions are in section 3(1)(a) and (c) and both apply to males and females alike.

Class I heirs. As the Schedule stands after the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, Class I contains sixteen heirs:

Mother; widow; son; daughter; son of a predeceased son; daughter of a predeceased son; son of a predeceased daughter; daughter of a predeceased daughter; widow of a predeceased son; son of a predeceased son of a predeceased son; daughter of a predeceased son of a predeceased son; widow of a predeceased son of a predeceased son; and the four heirs added in 2005: son of a predeceased daughter of a predeceased daughter; daughter of a predeceased daughter of a predeceased daughter; daughter of a predeceased son of a predeceased daughter; and daughter of a predeceased daughter of a predeceased son.

Section 9, order. Heirs in Class I take simultaneously and to the exclusion of all other heirs. Among Class II heirs, those in the first entry are preferred to those in the second, and so on down the nine entries; heirs in the same entry take equally.

The shares in the first line are counted as: W (1) + M (1) + S (1) + D (1) + the branch of PS (1) = five shares. So W, M, S and D take one-fifth each, and the branch of PS takes one-fifth, divided equally under Rule 4 among SW, SS1 and SS2, giving each one-fifteenth.

Class II. Nine entries, in order: (I) father; (II) son's daughter's son, son's daughter's daughter, brother, sister; (III) daughter's son's son, daughter's son's daughter, daughter's daughter's son, daughter's daughter's daughter; (IV) brother's son, sister's son, brother's daughter, sister's daughter; (V) father's father, father's mother; (VI) father's widow, brother's widow; (VII) father's brother, father's sister; (VIII) mother's father, mother's mother; (IX) mother's brother, mother's sister. Section 11 says the heirs in one entry share equally.

Agnates and cognates. Section 12 lays down three rules of preference: an heir with fewer degrees of ascent is preferred; where the degrees of ascent are the same or none, the heir with fewer degrees of descent is preferred; where neither rule distinguishes them, they take simultaneously. Section 13 explains how degrees are computed, always inclusive of the intestate.

For full marks, cover: that the Act is of 1955; the nine fault grounds in section 13(1) with the statutory time limits; the two grounds in section 13(1A); the four grounds available to the wife alone under section 13(2); divorce by mutual consent under section 13B; the bar in section 14; the bars in section 23; and the debate on irretrievable breakdown.

The Act is the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The Adoptions and Maintenance, Minority and Guardianship, and Succession Acts are of 1956.

Divorce under the Act rests on three theories: the fault or guilt theory in section 13(1), the breakdown theory in a limited form in sections 13(1A) and 13(1)(vii) and (viii), and the consent theory in section 13B.

A. Grounds available to either spouse, section 13(1). A marriage may be dissolved on a petition presented by either party on the ground that the other party:

5. Unsoundness of mind, section 13(1)(iii): has been incurably of unsound mind, or has been suffering continuously or intermittently from mental disorder of such a kind and to such an extent that the petitioner cannot reasonably be expected to live with the respondent.
6. Virulent and incurable leprosy, section 13(1)(iv): omitted by the Personal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2019, and no longer a ground.
7. Venereal disease in a communicable form, section 13(1)(v).
8. Renunciation of the world, section 13(1)(vi): has renounced the world by entering any religious order.
9. Presumption of death, section 13(1)(vii): has not been heard of as being alive for seven years or more by those who would naturally have heard of him or her.

B. Breakdown grounds, section 13(1A). Either party may petition on the ground that:

• there has been no resumption of cohabitation for one year or more after a decree of judicial separation; or
• there has been no restitution of conjugal rights for one year or more after a decree of restitution.

D. Divorce by mutual consent, section 13B. Both parties may present a joint petition on the ground that they have been living separately for a year or more, that they have not been able to live together, and that they have mutually agreed that the marriage should be dissolved. The motion must be repeated not earlier than six months and not later than eighteen months after the petition. The six-month period is directory, not mandatory, and may be waived by the court: Amardeep Singh v. Harveen Kaur (2017).

E. Bars.

• Section 14 bars any petition for divorce within one year of the marriage, unless the court allows it on the ground of exceptional hardship to the petitioner or exceptional depravity of the respondent.
• Section 23(1) requires the court to be satisfied that the petitioner is not taking advantage of his own wrong, that there has been no accessory, connivance or condonation in a case of adultery, no collusion, and no improper or unnecessary delay.
• Section 23(2) obliges the court to make every endeavour to bring about reconciliation before granting relief.

(ii) Capacity to consent. At the time of the marriage neither party (a) is incapable of giving a valid consent in consequence of unsoundness of mind; (b) though capable of giving valid consent, has been suffering from mental disorder of such a kind or to such an extent as to be unfit for marriage and the procreation of children; or (c) has been subject to recurrent attacks of insanity. Breach makes the marriage voidable under section 12(1)(b).

(iii) Age. The bridegroom has completed twenty-one years and the bride eighteen years at the time of the marriage. Breach does not make the marriage void or voidable under the Hindu Marriage Act; it is punished under section 18(a) with rigorous imprisonment up to two years or fine up to one lakh rupees or both.

(iv) Degrees of prohibited relationship. The parties are not within the degrees of prohibited relationship as defined in section 3(g), unless the custom or usage governing each of them permits a marriage between the two. Breach makes the marriage void under section 11 and is punishable under section 18(b).

Registration, section 8. The State Government may make rules for the registration of Hindu marriages, and may make registration compulsory; but section 8(5) provides that the validity of a Hindu marriage is in no way affected by the omission to make the entry. In Seema v. Ashwani Kumar (2006) the Supreme Court directed all States and Union Territories to make registration of marriages of all citizens, whatever their religion, compulsory, because unregistered marriages made it easy to deny the marriage and hard for women to prove it.