🧾 1. What was survivorship and how did the law stand before 2005

Under traditional Mitakshara Hindu law and the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, when a male Hindu who had interest in a coparcenary property died, his share did not devolve by succession to legal heirs; instead it passed by survivorship to the remaining coparceners (i.e., the male members of the joint family). This meant:

• The deceased’s interest vanished and was absorbed into the remaining coparcenary estate.
• Only if a female Class I heir survived would the share devolve by succession instead of survivorship.
• Daughters were not coparceners, and thus had no birthright share in ancestral property. 

This survivorship doctrine was a hallmark of the old regime until the 2005 Amendment.

📜 2. How the 2005 Amendment abolished survivorship

The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 substituted Section 6 of the 1956 Act with a new provision that abolished the doctrine of survivorship for coparcenary property and introduced key changes:

🧠 Key Points After 2005 Amendment

✔️ Daughters are coparceners by birth—same rights and liabilities as sons. 
✔️ Upon a Hindu coparcener’s death after 9 Sep 2005, his interest is to be devolved by testamentary or intestate succession under the Act, not by survivorship. 
✔️ The property is deemed to have been partitioned notionally immediately before death, and each coparcener has a share which devolves by succession. 
✔️ A safeguarding provision preserves partitions (deeds or court decrees) executed before 20 Dec 2004.

Thus, once the Amendment came into force, survivorship no longer applies as the default mode of devolution. Instead inheritance rules under Sections 8–10 of the Act apply to coparcenary shares.

⚖️ 3. Judicial Interpretation – Key Case Laws

Below are six landmark case laws interpreting the abolition of survivorship and the effect of the 2005 Amendment:

(1) Prakash v. Phulavati (2016) 2 SCC 36

✔️ This was one of the earliest Supreme Court rulings interpreting the amended Section 6.

📌 Held: The 2005 Amendment was to be construed as prospective in nature — a daughter would get coparcenary rights only if both she and her father (coparcener) were alive on 9 Sep 2005.
👉 It refused retrospective application to a case where the father had died before the amendment’s enforcement, even though the suit was pending.

Significance: Initially limited the 2005 Amendment’s impact and still preserved traits of survivorship for pre‑2005 deaths.

(2) Danamma Suman Surpur v. Amar (2018) 3 SCC 343

📌 In this judgment, the Supreme Court adopted a broader view, granting coparcenary rights to daughters even if their father died before the amendment.

👉 It emphasized that since the Amendment made daughters coparceners by birth, deprivation due to father’s death prior to 2005 was unjust.

Significance: Clarified that amended Section 6 was not strictly prospective as held in Prakash, and that the daughter’s coparcenary status was embedded in the Act’s substantive change.

(3) Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma (2020) 9 SCC 1

📌 This is now the leading Supreme Court decision on the subject.

Held:
✔️ The Amendment confers rights on a daughter by birth and it is not necessary that the father be alive on 9 Sep 2005.
✔️ Survivorship was explicitly abolished for deaths occurring after the Amendment — shares devolved by succession.
✔️ Retrospective challenges to the Amendment were rejected — the coparcenary rights flow from birth and apply regardless of father’s death date.

Significance: Settled the conflict between Prakash and Danamma by holding that survivorship stands abolished and daughters have full coparcenary rights retrospectively.

(4) Ganduri Koteshwaramma v. Chakiri Yanadi (2011) 9 SCC 788

📌 This case, decided before the Amendment but applied to proceedings still pending post‑2005, is often cited to explain how preliminary decrees can be modified to grant daughters their rightful share when the Amendment applies.

👉 Holds that substantive rights of daughters under Section 6, as substituted in 2005, can be recognized in pending suits.

(5) G. Sekar v. Geetha and Ors. (2009) (High Court precedent applied in Prakash)

📌 This case is often relied upon for the principal that changes to substantive rights apply to pending cases — not by retrospective effect but by the law in force at the time of hearing.

👉 Although not itself a Supreme Court decision on 2005 Amendment, it was applied in Prakash to justify applying amended Section 6 to suits pending as on 9 Sep 2005.

(6) High Court Decisions Interpreting the Amendment

✔️ Vaishali Satish Ganorkar v. Satish Keshaorao Ganorkar (Bombay HC) — held, in early interpretation, that 2005 Amendment applies only if daughter was born after 2005 (later overruled in higher precedents).

✔️ Various High Court rulings (e.g., Karnataka HC) applied Vineeta Sharma to hold that once survivorship is abolished, any partitions after 2004 cannot defeat daughter’s share.

🧩 4. What abolition of survivorship actually means in practice

📌 5. Summary of Legal Impact

• The doctrine of survivorship for Mitakshara coparcenary property was abolished by the 2005 Amendment. 
• Now, every coparcener (including daughters) has a devolvable share that passes by succession, aligning Hindu succession law with constitutional gender equality. 
• The Supreme Court has clarified and harmonized conflicting interpretations — most decisively in Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma — that the abolition is real, effective, and applies regardless of whether the father was alive in 2005. 

🧠 Conclusion

The 2005 Amendment radically changed the inheritance landscape by abolishing survivorship as the rule of devolution in coparcenary property and replacing it with devolution by succession under the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. This eliminated a discriminatory legacy and made daughters equal coparceners by birth. The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, particularly in Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma, now firmly embeds this principle in modern Hindu succession law.