What is the Doctrine of Survivorship?

The Doctrine of Survivorship means that when one of several joint owners dies, their share automatically passes to the surviving joint owner(s), not to their legal heirs.

In Hindu law, this traditionally applied to coparcenary property under the Hindu Succession Act, 1956.

However, after the 2005 amendment, daughters were given equal coparcenary rights, and survivorship was largely replaced by succession in many cases.

Today, a deceased coparcener’s share generally devolves by succession, not automatically by survivorship.