Last verified: 2026-07-31
Section 22 of the Hindu Succession Act gives a Class-I heir the preferential right to buy a co-heir’s share before it is sold to an outsider. A 2026 Supreme Court ruling confirmed it covers inherited agricultural land, with the court fixing the price if disputed.
In a 2026 ruling, the Supreme Court held in Mahinder v. Puran Singh, 2026 INSC 698 that the preferential right of Class-I heirs under Section 22 extends to inherited agricultural land. The bench affirmed Babu Ram v. Santokh Singh, (2019) 14 SCC 162, distinguished the older pre-emption ruling in Atam Prakash v. State of Haryana, (1986) 2 SCC 249, and confirmed that Parliament was competent to legislate on the point. The Court called the right a weak but enforceable one that must be asserted before the sale to an outsider is completed.
This article explains Section 22 of the Hindu Succession Act, the agricultural-land controversy and how it was settled, who can claim the preferential right, how to exercise and defend it in court, how the price is fixed under Section 22(2), and how the right compares with pre-emption and partition.
How the preferential right under Section 22 of the Hindu Succession Act works
Section 22 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 gives a Class-I heir who inherits property jointly with other Class-I heirs the first right to buy a co-heir’s share before that share can be transferred to anyone outside the family. The right is a preference, not ownership. It lets one heir step in ahead of an outside buyer, at a price the heirs agree on or the court fixes, so the inherited property stays with the people who inherited it. The whole provision exists to keep intestate property from being broken up among strangers the moment one co-owner wants out.
Why does the law bother? Because inherited property is rarely divided the day the owner dies. Siblings hold a house or a field jointly for years, and then one of them needs cash and offers the share to an outsider. Section 22 gives the others a chance to match that offer first, which spares the family a stranger as a co-owner and spares the courts a partition fight later.
Here’s the thing about the mechanics: the right is triggered by a proposal to transfer, not by the transfer itself. The co-heir who wants to sell must, in effect, offer the share to the others before closing with an outsider. If the others want it, they pay and take it. If they don’t, the sale to the outsider can proceed.
That sequence is the heart of the section, and it’s where most disputes begin.
The right is India-specific in a very concrete way. It runs against a registered sale to an outsider, and Indian courts have used it to unwind such sales where the co-heir was never given the chance the section requires. A practising advocate in a district court sees this most often with agricultural holdings and old family houses, where one branch of the family sells quietly and the others find out at the sub-registrar’s office.
In practice, though, the section is under-used because few families know it exists until a sale has already happened. The mistake we see most often is treating Section 22 as a technicality that can be sorted out later. It cannot. The right is defeasible: sleep on it, and it can slip away.
A common question litigants raise is whether the right gives them the land for free. It does not. It gives them the first chance to buy at fair value, which is a very different thing.
The statutory text of Section 22 and the property it covers
The trigger is a Class-I heir proposing to transfer an interest in property that devolved on intestacy under the Act. Section 22 opens by saying that where an interest in any immovable property of an intestate, or in any business carried on by the deceased (alone or with others), devolves on two or more Class-I heirs, and one of them proposes to transfer that interest, the other heirs have a preferential right to acquire it. Read slowly, that sentence sets the boundaries of the whole right.
Two features of the covered property surprise people. First, it is not limited to farmland. It reaches any immovable property, so a house, a shop, an urban plot, or a share in a family building is squarely within the section. Second, it expressly covers a business the deceased ran, so if co-heirs inherit a going concern, one heir’s proposal to sell his stake in the business triggers the same preferential right the others would have over land.
The controlling condition is that the property must have come by intestate succession, meaning the owner died without a valid will disposing of it. Section 22 does not attach to property the deceased gave away by will, and it does not attach to a co-owner’s separately acquired property. But it is a right that lives inside the Hindu Succession Act’s scheme for devolution; for the wider framework of how a Hindu’s property passes on death, see iPleaders’ complete guide to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956.
Worth flagging: the section talks about an “interest” devolving on “two or more” heirs. That plural is load-bearing. If a single heir inherited the whole property, there is no co-heir to prefer, and the section simply does not operate. The right presupposes shared inheritance, and the drama only starts when one of several co-owners wants to leave.
A right of substitution, not of re-purchase
Section 22 is best understood as a right of substitution, not a right of re-purchase. The heir does not buy back something already lost; the heir steps into the shoes of the outside buyer and takes the transfer on the same terms. That characterisation is old. It traces to Gobind Dayal v. Inayatullah, (1885) ILR 7 All 775, the classic Full Bench exposition of pre-emption as “a right of substitution,” and the Supreme Court adopted the same language in 2026 when describing the nature of the Section 22 right.
The distinction matters because it tells you what the heir actually gets. A right of substitution means the heir acquires the very interest the co-heir was going to sell, at the agreed or court-fixed consideration, rather than a fresh right carved out of thin air. It is a preferential right of purchase, and it is different in kind from a contractual right of first refusal. A right of first refusal comes from a bargain the parties struck; the Section 22 preference comes from the statute itself, by virtue of being a co-heir.
The 2026 Court also called this a “weak right.” That is not an insult; it is a legal description. A weak right here means a bare statutory preference that must be actively asserted and that can be defeated if the holder does not assert it in time. It gives no automatic title and no veto over the family’s affairs.
Can the right be inherited, sold, or waived? Because the preference is an incident of the co-heir’s inherited interest rather than a freestanding asset, it is generally treated as attaching to that status rather than as something a co-heir can hawk to a third party. It can certainly be waived, and it can be lost by conduct, which is covered in the section on exercising the right and the section on who can claim. And that fragility is exactly why timing, treated later, decides most of these cases.
Does Section 22 of the Hindu Succession Act apply to agricultural land?
Yes. Section 22 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 applies to inherited agricultural land, a position the Supreme Court settled after decades of High Court disagreement, most recently in a 2026 ruling. For years the answer was genuinely unclear, because a separate provision of the Act appeared to hold farmland at arm’s length. That provision is now gone, and with it the argument that agricultural holdings sit outside the preferential right.
The confusion was never about the words of Section 22 itself, which speak of “any immovable property.” Agricultural land is immovable property. The doubt came from elsewhere in the Act, and from the constitutional sensitivity around who gets to legislate on farmland. Once you understand where the doubt came from, the modern position is straightforward.
So does a brother’s inherited field carry the same preferential right as the family house? After 2005, yes, and two Supreme Court rulings now say so directly. The section that follows explains the source of the old doubt, the amendment that removed it, and the case that first applied the settled position to farmland. Section 22 also reaches only property that a co-heir takes by intestacy, so this whole discussion assumes the field was inherited rather than devised by will; for the underlying idea of property inherited on intestacy, iPleaders has a dedicated explainer.
The practical reality is that agricultural land is where this fight matters most. Rural holdings are frequently held jointly by siblings for a generation before anyone thinks about formal partition, and a quiet sale of one share to an outsider is common. That is precisely the scenario Section 22 was built for, and the 2026 ruling makes clear the section does not flinch just because the property grows a crop.
The role of the now-repealed Section 4(2)
The doubt came from Section 4(2) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, which until 2005 kept the devolution of tenancy rights in agricultural holdings outside the Act’s operation. In plain terms, Section 4(2) said that nothing in the Act would override state laws that provided for the fragmentation of agricultural holdings or for the fixation of ceilings or the devolution of tenancy rights in respect of such holdings. Because succession to certain agricultural interests was carved out, High Courts split on whether a general provision like Section 22 could reach farmland at all.
That split ran for decades. From 1956 onward, one line of authority read Section 4(2) narrowly, treating it as protecting only specific state tenancy and ceiling schemes, so Section 22 still applied to ordinary inherited farmland. Another line read it broadly, treating agricultural succession as a state subject the Hindu Succession Act had deliberately left alone. Litigants in different states got different answers to the same question, which is a poor state of affairs for a right meant to keep families intact.
The core of the problem was a mismatch between two ideas. Section 22 is a succession rule; Section 4(2) was a saving clause for land-tenure law. When a co-heir sold farmland, a buyer could argue that agricultural devolution was governed by state revenue law, not the Act, so the co-heirs had no preferential right. And for a long time no one could say with confidence that the argument was wrong.
Frankly, this gets overlooked in the news coverage of the recent rulings. The 2019 and 2026 decisions did not invent a new right over farmland. They removed a doubt that a repealed saving clause had created. The right was always in Section 22; the question was whether a now-deleted provision fenced farmland off from it.
How the 2005 amendment removed the agricultural-land exception
The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 deleted Section 4(2), and that deletion removed the textual basis for excluding farmland from the Act. Once the saving clause was gone, there was no longer any provision that pulled agricultural devolution out of the Hindu Succession Act. The same 2005 amendment made daughters coparceners in the family property, which is the change most people remember, but the quiet repeal of Section 4(2) is what unlocked the agricultural-land question under Section 22.
The logic is subtractive rather than additive. And Parliament did not write a new line saying “Section 22 applies to farmland.” It simply took away the clause that had been used to argue the opposite. After 9 September 2005, the Act operates on agricultural holdings the way it operates on any other immovable property, subject only to genuine state land-tenure laws that continue in their own field.
The comparison below sets out how the position shifted before and after the amendment.
| Aspect | Before the 2005 amendment | After the 2005 amendment |
|---|---|---|
| Governing text | Section 4(2) kept devolution of tenancy rights in agricultural holdings outside the Act | Section 4(2) deleted; the Act applies without an agricultural-land carve-out |
| High Court position | Split: some benches held Section 22 did not reach farmland, others applied it | A uniform basis for applying Section 22 to inherited farmland |
| The preferential right over farmland | Doubtful and heavily litigated | Settled: Babu Ram (2019) and Mahinder (2026) confirm it applies |
| Buyer’s argument | A co-heir or buyer could claim farmland was exempt from the Act | The undivided farmland share is subject to the co-heirs’ preferential right |
Bottom line: the reader who wants the short version can stop here. No Section 4(2), no exception. Everything after the amendment flows from that single deletion.
Babu Ram (2019): no exception left for farmland
The Supreme Court in Babu Ram held that with Section 4(2) gone there is no exception, so Section 22 applies even to agricultural land. This 2019 decision is the foundational authority the later ruling rests on, and it converted the subtractive logic of the 2005 amendment into a clear rule: a Class-I heir’s preferential right reaches inherited farmland like any other immovable property.
The facts, stripped of names, show why the right matters. Two brothers inherited agricultural holdings as Class-I heirs. After an informal family arrangement broke down, one brother sold his share to an outsider by a registered sale deed, without giving the other the preferential right the section requires. The co-heir sued under Section 22, and the courts ultimately directed the outside buyer to reconvey the share at a court-fixed price.
That remedy is the part practitioners flag most. A registered sale to a stranger was not treated as the end of the road. Because the co-heir had a statutory preference that was ignored, the court could put things back by ordering the outsider to hand over the share at a valuation the court set. And the review petition against the ruling was dismissed later the same year, so the position hardened quickly.
A common misconception is that an oral or family understanding about who gets what defeats the section. It does not, by itself. In the reported facts, an informal arrangement had existed and had broken down, yet the co-heir still succeeded under Section 22. The lesson for families is blunt: a handshake is not a substitute for either a registered partition or a properly offered preferential right.
What did the Supreme Court hold about Section 22 in Mahinder v. Puran Singh (2026)?
The Supreme Court in a 2026 ruling held that the Section 22 preferential right of Class-I heirs extends to inherited agricultural land, affirmed Babu Ram, and refused to refer the question to a larger bench. The bench treated the 2019 decision as correctly decided, added reasoning the earlier ruling had not needed, and closed off the main routes a buyer might use to reopen the question.
Two strands of reasoning did the heavy lifting. First, the Court distinguished the old pre-emption case that buyers kept citing against Section 22. Second, it explained why Parliament had the constitutional competence to legislate a succession-based preference over agricultural land. A concurring judge added that the right is, in its pith and substance, an incident of succession rather than a standalone pre-emption statute, which is the conceptual key to the whole judgment.
The bench also restated the ingredients of the right in a way practitioners can use. It exists between co-heirs of an intestate; it confers a preference when a co-heir alienates to a third party; it is enforced through ordinary civil procedure with no special mechanism; and it must be asserted before the transaction is completed. Those four points read like a checklist, and they are.
How does the 2026 ruling differ from the 2019 one it affirmed? The table below separates what each decision added.
| Point | Babu Ram (2019) | Mahinder (2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Core holding | Section 22 applies to agricultural land; deletion of Section 4(2) leaves no exception | Affirmed that holding and refused to refer it to a larger bench |
| Reasoning added | Rested mainly on the removal of the Section 4(2) exclusion | Added the Entry 5, List III competence reasoning and the Atam Prakash distinction |
| View of the right | A statutory preference operating within succession | An incident of succession, not standalone pre-emption (per the concurrence) |
| Practical emphasis | Outsider-buyer directed to reconvey at a court-fixed price | Reaffirmed that the right must be asserted before the transfer is completed |
How the Court distinguished Atam Prakash (1986)
The Court held that Atam Prakash struck down Section 15 of the Punjab Pre-emption Act, 1913 on Article 14 grounds and never examined Section 22, so relying on it against Section 22 was a wholly incorrect reading. In the 1986 case, the Supreme Court had invalidated a statutory pre-emption right that let kinsfolk and co-sharers, and in places near-strangers, jump ahead of a buyer, finding the classification arbitrary and unconstitutional. Buyers of inherited farmland then tried to tar Section 22 with the same brush.
But the 2026 bench refused to let them. Its point was one of scope. Atam Prakash decided the fate of a land-tenure pre-emption statute; it said nothing about a succession-based preference among Class-I heirs. Using a case that struck down one statute to attack a wholly different one, the Court said, misreads what the earlier case actually decided.
The difference in reach is the crux. Section 22 is confined strictly to Class-I heirs who inherited jointly. No tenant, no distant blood relation, no co-owner from outside the inheritance, and certainly no co-villager can invoke it.
The Punjab statute, by contrast, extended pre-emption to distant relatives and strangers, which is exactly the over-broad, arbitrary classification that failed the Article 14 test. A narrow, family-anchored preference is not the same animal as a sprawling neighbour-and-kin pre-emption law.
We’d put it this way for anyone arguing one of these cases: the Atam Prakash card looks strong until you ask who can actually claim under the two provisions. Once the class of claimants is on the table, the resemblance collapses. That is the distinction the Court drew, and it is why the same fate did not befall Section 22.
Parliament’s competence under Entry 5 of List III
The Court confirmed that Parliament was competent to legislate on this under Entry 5 of List III, which covers intestacy and succession, so the objection based on legislative competence failed. Entry 5 of the Concurrent List places wills, intestacy and succession within the reach of both Parliament and the state legislatures. Because Section 22 is a succession provision, it falls comfortably inside that entry, agricultural land or not.
The bench added a piece of constitutional history that closes the loophole. The framers deliberately dropped the “agricultural land” exclusion that the Government of India Act, 1935 had carried in the corresponding legislative entry. In other words, when the Constitution was drafted, the choice was made not to fence farmland off from central succession law. So the argument that succession to agricultural land is purely a state matter runs against the text the framers chose.
That reasoning also disposed of the repugnancy objection under Article 254. Article 254 decides what happens when a central law and a state law on a Concurrent List subject collide. Here the Court found no such collision to resolve, because Section 22 governs succession while state land laws govern tenure and ceilings, and the two operate in different fields. Where there is no repugnancy, Article 254 has no work to do.
Does that mean state land law never touches an inherited field? Not quite, and the Court was careful about it. A succession-based preference and a state tenancy or ceiling law can each apply in their own lane, and the overlap between them is one of the questions left for another day. The interaction with state land-ceiling and tenancy law is picked up again in the section on what the ruling changes.
Who can claim the preferential right under Section 22, and when it arises
Only a Class-I heir who inherited the property jointly with the co-heir who now wants to sell can claim the preferential right under Section 22 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. The right belongs to a narrow, defined group, and it arises only in a specific situation: two or more of those heirs took the property together, and one of them proposes to transfer an interest to someone outside the group. Get either element wrong and there is no claim to press.
That narrowness is deliberate, and it’s the same feature that saved the section from the fate of the pre-emption law discussed earlier. The class is small, the relationship is close, and the purpose is to keep inherited property with the people who inherited it rather than to hand a windfall to distant kin or neighbours. In practice, though, litigants often assume the right is broader than it is, which is where most weak claims start.
Class-I heirs only: no tenant, co-owner or distant relative
The right belongs only to the other Class-I heirs of the same intestate, not to a tenant, an outside co-owner, a distant relation, or a co-villager. Class-I heirs are the closest family: the widow, the sons and daughters, the mother, and the heirs of any predeceased children, among others listed in the Schedule to the Act. To understand who sits in that class and why the order of succession puts them first, iPleaders’ explainer on how succession works under Hindu law maps the full hierarchy.
The exclusions are as important as the inclusions. A person who leases the land from the family cannot use Section 22 to leapfrog a buyer. Neither can a Class-II heir, nor a cousin, nor a neighbour who would like the field. This is the very point the 2026 Court used to distinguish the struck-down pre-emption statute: Section 22 does not reach beyond the Class-I heirs of one intestate.
There is a status point that trips people up. A person who is disqualified from inheriting, for example under the Act’s disqualification provisions, is not an heir who can claim the preferential right, because the claim depends on actually being an heir who took the property. On disqualifications and how they cut a person out of the succession, see iPleaders on how an heir can be disqualified from inheriting. And if a person never inherited, there is nothing on which the preference can bite.
The right needs two or more heirs and a transfer to an outsider
The preferential right arises only where two or more heirs inherited together and one of them proposes to transfer the interest to a person outside that group of heirs. Both conditions are structural. And each does independent work: without co-heirs, there is no one to prefer; without a proposed transfer to an outsider, there is nothing to trigger the preference. Section 22 is a rule about exits, and it only wakes up when a co-owner tries to leave for a stranger.
So the section does not apply if a single heir inherited the whole property, because there is no co-heir with a competing claim to buy. It also does not apply to a transfer from one co-heir to another co-heir, since that transfer keeps the property inside the group the section protects. The outsider is the trigger.
Can a co-heir simply sell to an outsider without offering it to the others first? Not cleanly. A co-heir has the power to alienate an undivided share, but that alienation is subject to the other heirs’ preferential right, which is why an ignored sale can be undone. The practical reality is that a co-heir who wants a clean, unchallengeable sale should route it through the other heirs first, or buy them out, rather than gamble on their silence.
An oral or family arrangement does not, on its own, defeat the right. Families often say “we agreed years ago that this plot is mine,” but as the 2019 facts showed, an informal arrangement that later breaks down will not necessarily bar a co-heir’s Section 22 claim. If families want certainty, the reliable routes are a registered partition or a written, registered family settlement, not a remembered conversation.
Inherited property, self-acquired property, and the effect of a will
Section 22 applies to property that devolved by intestate succession, not to the deceased’s self-acquired property that passed some other way, and a valid will can take the property outside intestacy so the right never arises. The dividing line is how the property came to the co-owners. If it came because the owner died without a will and the Act distributed it among Class-I heirs, the preference applies. If it came by gift, purchase, or a will, it did not devolve on intestacy, and Section 22 has nothing to grip.
The will point is the sharpest. Under Section 30 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, a Hindu can dispose of property by will, and a valid testamentary disposition takes that property out of the intestacy rules entirely. So if the deceased left a will giving the field to one child outright, that child does not hold it as a co-heir, and no other heir has a Section 22 preference over it. The right presupposes that the property fell into the intestate pool in the first place.
Here’s a distinction worth holding onto: self-acquired property is not exempt because it is “self-acquired”; it is outside Section 22 only if it did not pass by intestate succession to two or more Class-I heirs. Self-acquired property that the owner dies owning, without a will, devolves on intestacy just like anything else, and then the preference can apply to it. The label matters less than the route by which the current owners took it.
The interplay with wills is a live drafting concern, and it is taken up again in the comparison section. For now, the takeaway is simple: a clear will is the cleanest way for an owner to decide who takes the property and to keep the preferential right from ever arising.
Whether daughters, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists can claim
Daughters are Class-I heirs and can claim the preferential right, and the Act, and therefore Section 22, applies to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. A daughter inherits as a Class-I heir on the same footing as a son, so where she is a co-heir of inherited property, she has the same preferential right to buy out a sibling who wants to sell to an outsider, and the same exposure if she is the one selling.
The 2005 amendment reinforced this from a different direction. By making daughters coparceners under Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, it enlarged the shares many daughters hold in family property, which in turn enlarges what a daughter can either protect or transfer when a co-heir’s exit triggers Section 22. Coparcenary share and preferential right are separate ideas, but the amendment strengthened both for daughters at the same time.
On religion, the Hindu Succession Act defines “Hindu” broadly for its own purposes. And it applies to Hindus in all their forms and, by express extension, to Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. So a Sikh family holding inherited farmland in Punjab, or a Jain family holding an inherited building, is governed by Section 22 the same way a Hindu family is. And that reach is not incidental to the farmland question: the Punjab context is exactly where the 2026 dispute arose.
A common query is whether a daughter who has married into another family loses the right. She does not lose her status as a Class-I heir by marriage. Her preferential right, like any co-heir’s, turns on whether she inherited the property jointly, not on where she now lives.
How to exercise the preferential right under Section 22 in court
You exercise the Section 22 preferential right by asserting it before the co-heir’s transfer is completed and, if the co-heir refuses, by filing an ordinary civil suit for a declaration and for the share to be conveyed to you at a price the court fixes. There is no special tribunal and no fast-track form. The right lives or dies on two things: acting in time, and pleading the suit correctly.
The sequence is worth stating plainly, because the order is what people get wrong.
- The co-heir proposes to sell to an outsider.
- You assert your preferential right before that transfer completes.
- If you are rebuffed, you sue for a declaration of the right, an injunction to stop the sale, and a direction that the share be conveyed to you.
- The court fixes the consideration under Section 22(2) if the parties cannot agree.
- You pay the court-fixed price, and the share is conveyed to you.
Assert the right before the transfer is completed: the timing trap
The single most common way to lose the right is to sleep on it, because Section 22 reaches a proposed or contemplated transfer, not one already concluded and closed. The Madhya Pradesh High Court in Ghewarwala Jain v. Hanuman Prasad, AIR 1981 MP 250 read the section this way: the preferential right operates on a transfer that is proposed, so the heir must assert it while the sale is still in contemplation rather than after it is a done deal. Miss that window and the strongest argument shifts to the other side.
What counts as a “transfer” that triggers the section? A sale plainly does. The section speaks of a co-heir who “proposes to transfer,” which is why a heir who learns of an intended sale should act at once rather than wait for the sale deed.
Whether a pure gift, as opposed to a sale, triggers the same preference is less settled, because a gift involves no consideration for the co-heirs to match, and the right is framed around acquiring an interest for a price. The safer working assumption is that the section is built for transfers for value, and a heir facing a proposed gift should take advice early rather than assume the right is identical.
Silence and delay can amount to waiver by conduct. If a co-heir knows of the proposed sale, is given the chance to buy, and does nothing while the outsider pays and takes possession, a court may well treat the preference as given up. The right can be waived, and waiver need not be a signed document; it can be inferred from a heir who stood by. That is the trap in one line: the law helps the heir who moves, not the heir who waits.
And this is where the pain-point questions cluster. “I found out only after registration” is the worst position to be in, though not always fatal, as the next section explains. The mistake to avoid is assuming there is plenty of time. There is not.
The civil suit and the limitation period to file it
The right is enforced through an ordinary civil suit, a declaration plus an injunction and a direction to convey, and it must be filed within the limitation period or it is lost. There is no special mechanism; the co-heir goes to the civil court that has jurisdiction over the property, and the suit is pleaded like any other civil claim over immovable property. The 2026 Court itself said the right is enforced through ordinary civil procedure, which settles any suggestion that some bespoke remedy exists.
Because a Section 22 claim is an ordinary civil suit, the drafting is what wins or loses it: a well-pleaded plaint that sets out the intestate succession, the co-heir status, the proposed transfer to an outsider, the assertion of the right, and the refusal, and that asks for a declaration, a temporary injunction to freeze the sale, and a direction to convey at a court-fixed price. Practitioners who want to sharpen that skill set will find LawSikho’s certificate course in advanced civil litigation, practice, procedure and drafting a useful companion on framing the plaint, pressing for interim relief, and leading valuation evidence.
Limitation is the quiet killer. The Act does not spell out a bespoke period for a Section 22 claim, so the applicable article of the Limitation Act, 1963 governs, and the clock runs from the point the cause of action arises, typically when the right is denied or the adverse transfer is made. Because the exact article can be contested, a co-heir should treat the limitation question as urgent and get advice on it early rather than assume a comfortable multi-year window.
Is the right lost if you delay filing? It can be, both through limitation and through waiver by conduct, which is two separate ways the same delay hurts you.
Our recommendation, based on what we’ve seen, is to move on two tracks at once: assert the preferential right in writing the moment a sale looks likely, and prepare the suit in parallel so an injunction application is ready before the sale deed is executed. Waiting for the registration to happen and then reacting is the path most likely to end in a lost right.
Can you recover the land if a co-heir already sold it to a stranger?
Yes, in the right circumstances a court can direct the stranger-buyer to reconvey the share to the heir at a court-fixed price, which is exactly what happened in Babu Ram. A registered sale to an outsider is not an automatic dead end. Where the co-heir’s preferential right was ignored, courts have unwound the sale by ordering the buyer to convey the share back to the heir at a valuation the court sets, restoring the position the section was meant to protect.
That said, the remedy is not guaranteed, and the “I found out only after registration” scenario is genuinely harder. If the heir knew of the sale and let it proceed, the reconveyance argument weakens sharply, because the buyer can point to the heir’s inaction as waiver. If the heir genuinely had no notice and moves promptly on discovering the registration, the Babu Ram remedy is squarely available. The difference between the two is knowledge and speed.
The effect of a registered sale deed, then, is not what most buyers assume. Registration proves the transaction; it does not cleanse it of the co-heirs’ statutory right. A buyer who takes a co-heir’s undivided share without confirming that the other Class-I heirs were offered it first is buying a lawsuit along with the land. And the price the buyer paid does not fix the reconveyance figure; the court fixes that under Section 22(2), which the next section explains.
“My brother sold his share to a stranger without telling me” is the classic Section 22 fact pattern, and the honest answer is: possibly recoverable, but only if you act fast and were not sitting on notice. The window is the same window the timing section described. It closes.
How the price is fixed under Section 22(2) of the Hindu Succession Act
Under Section 22(2) of the Hindu Succession Act, if the heirs cannot agree on the price, the court fixes the consideration the acquiring heir must pay for the co-heir’s share. The default is agreement: the heirs are free to settle a figure between themselves. But only when they cannot does the court step in, on an application made for that purpose, and determine the consideration on evidence. This is what stops a selling heir from naming an impossible price to block the preference, and stops an acquiring heir from lowballing.
What does the court weigh? Fair market value of the interest at the relevant date is the anchor, adjusted for the nature and extent of the specific interest being transferred, since an undivided share in jointly held land is not valued the same way as a clean, partitioned plot. Disputes over improvements are common: a transferring heir who built on the land or dug a well will argue the value should reflect that, while the acquiring heir will argue about who paid and when. These are evidence questions the court resolves, not matters the parties can simply assert.
Who decides when one heir quotes an inflated price? The court, on evidence, not the parties. If the selling heir demands a figure far above market to frustrate the preference, the acquiring heir applies under Section 22(2) and the court sets a realistic consideration.
Section 22 also builds in a cost sanction: a person who applies to have the price fixed and then refuses to acquire the interest at the court-determined figure is liable for the costs of the application. So an heir cannot use the price-fixing machinery as a free option and then walk away.
Because price-fixing sits with the court, expert land-valuation evidence becomes central, and valuation disputes migrate into the suit itself. A registered valuer’s report, comparable sales, and revenue records do real work here, and a claim that is strong on the right but weak on valuation evidence can still end badly for the heir. And that shift, of valuation fights into court, is one of the downstream effects the final section returns to.
When two or more heirs both want to buy the share
Where more than one Class-I heir wants to buy the outgoing share, Section 22 lets the court decide who acquires it, and the section gives the preference to the heir who offers the highest consideration. The provision expressly contemplates competing claimants: if two or more Class-I heirs propose to acquire the interest, the one offering the highest price is preferred. So the tie-break is money, not seniority or need.
That rule keeps the process fair to the selling heir, who should not be forced to accept less simply because two siblings both want the share. It also prevents a stalemate, since the court has a clear metric to apply rather than an open-ended discretion. Think of it as an internal auction confined to the family: the outsider is kept out, but among the heirs, the best offer wins.
Worth flagging one wrinkle: because the highest offer prevails, an heir who genuinely wants the share should put forward a serious figure rather than a token one, especially where a co-heir is equally keen. The court is not looking for the most sympathetic heir; it is looking for the best consideration, subject to the valuation principles that govern the price in the first place.
Section 22 compared with pre-emption, partition, and other succession routes
Section 22 differs from a statutory pre-emption law, from a partition, and from the general succession provisions in who it protects and what it does: it protects only Class-I co-heirs, and only against a transfer to an outsider. Readers constantly confuse it with each of these, and the confusion has real consequences, because the wrong label leads to the wrong pleading. And a wrong pleading is expensive to unwind once a suit is on foot. The three comparisons below draw the lines.
Section 22 versus the pre-emption law struck down in Atam Prakash
Section 22 survives where the Punjab pre-emption law fell, because it is confined to Class-I heirs of one intestate rather than extended to distant kin and strangers. The 2026 Court leaned on exactly this difference to distinguish the 1986 case. A succession-based preference among the closest heirs is a narrow, rational classification; a pre-emption right that reaches kinsfolk, co-sharers and neighbours is the arbitrary, over-broad classification that failed the Article 14 test.
| Feature | Section 22 preferential right | Statutory pre-emption (e.g., Section 15, Punjab Pre-emption Act, 1913) |
|---|---|---|
| Who can claim | Only Class-I heirs of the same intestate who inherited jointly | Extended to distant relatives, co-sharers and, in places, near-strangers |
| Source of the right | An incident of intestate succession under the Hindu Succession Act | A standalone land-tenure statute |
| Constitutional status | Upheld; a narrow, succession-based classification | Section 15 struck down in Atam Prakash as violative of Article 14 |
| Trigger | A co-heir proposing to transfer an inherited interest to an outsider | A sale of immovable property to which the pre-emptor claims priority |
| Basis of preference | Keeping inherited property within the family of heirs | Kinship and vicinage classifications the Court found arbitrary |
Section 22 is also different from a contractual right of first refusal, and the distinction is practical. A right of first refusal comes from a contract the parties chose to make, and it binds only those parties on the terms they set. The Section 22 preference comes from the statute, arises automatically among co-heirs, and needs no prior agreement.
One is a bargain; the other is a status. Confusing the two leads people to look for a contract that was never needed.
Section 22 versus a partition of inherited property
Section 22 is a right to buy out a co-heir who wants to exit to an outsider, whereas a partition divides the inherited property among all the heirs by metes and bounds. They solve different problems. Partition ends the co-ownership by giving each heir a defined share or its value; Section 22 preserves the family’s hold on the property when one co-owner tries to sell to a stranger. You can need one without the other.
| Feature | Section 22 preferential right | Partition |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Lets a co-heir buy out another co-heir who wants to exit to an outsider | Divides the inherited property among all heirs by metes and bounds |
| When it arises | When a co-heir proposes to transfer to a person outside the heirs | When any co-heir seeks to separate their share |
| Precondition | No formal partition required; co-ownership among heirs is enough | It ends the co-ownership by allotting defined shares |
| Outcome | One heir acquires the outgoing heir’s undivided share | Each heir holds a demarcated portion or its value |
| Operates against | A transfer to an outsider | The other co-heirs, to separate shares |
“We never formally partitioned, so can I still claim?” Yes. A formal partition is not a precondition for Section 22. The right runs precisely because the heirs still hold the property jointly and undivided, which is the normal state of inherited family property for years after a death.
Section 22 alongside Section 6, Section 8 and Section 30
Section 22 governs the preferential right after the estate has devolved, while Section 6 fixes coparcenary shares, Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 fixes the general order of succession for a male Hindu dying intestate, and Section 30 lets a will take property outside intestacy so the right never arises. These provisions run in sequence, not in competition. First you work out what devolved and to whom; only then does Section 22 govern a co-heir’s exit.
| Provision | What it governs | Role relative to Section 22 |
|---|---|---|
| Section 6 | Devolution of coparcenary interest; daughters as coparceners since 2005 | Fixes the size of the share before Section 22 can operate on it |
| Section 8 | General rules of succession for a male Hindu dying intestate | Identifies who the heirs are; Section 22 then governs a co-heir’s exit |
| Section 22 | Preferential right of a Class-I co-heir to acquire another’s share | Operates after devolution, on a proposed transfer to an outsider |
| Section 30 | Testamentary succession, that is, disposition by will | A valid will takes property outside intestacy, so Section 22 never arises |
The order clears up the most common mix-up, which is between coparcenary share and preferential right. Section 6 tells you how big a co-heir’s share is; Section 22 tells you what happens when that co-heir wants to sell the share to an outsider. A daughter’s enlarged coparcenary share since 2005, for instance, is a Section 6 point, but her right to buy out a brother selling to a stranger is a Section 22 point.
How does this compare with rights under other personal laws? Muslim law has its own well-developed doctrine of pre-emption (shufa), and Christian and Parsi succession are governed by their own statutes, none of which mirror Section 22 exactly. The preferential right here is a creature of the Hindu Succession Act and does not carry over to families governed by a different personal law. For a plain-English tour of how inheritance differs across communities, iPleaders covers how succession of property differs across religions.
What the 2026 ruling on Section 22 changes for buyers, sellers and families
After the 2026 ruling, anyone buying a co-heir’s undivided share in inherited land faces a real risk that a Class-I heir can have the sale undone, so due diligence and recorded family settlements now matter more than before. The ruling did not create a brand-new right, but by hardening and clarifying it, and by closing the pre-emption and competence escape routes, it makes the Section 22 preference much harder to argue around. And that is the real shift: the right was always there, but it is now far harder to ignore. The practical consequences fall on three groups: buyers, selling co-heirs, and families planning ahead.
Due diligence and conveyancing after the 2026 ruling
A buyer of a co-heir’s undivided share should now confirm that the other Class-I heirs were offered the share first, because a Section 22 claim can force reconveyance. That single check, easy to skip in a hurry, is the difference between a clean title and a suit for reconveyance at a court-fixed price. In practice, title opinions on inherited agricultural land will increasingly flag the co-heirs’ preferential right as a specific risk to clear, not a footnote. And High Courts have kept applying the right after 2019, including the Bombay High Court’s Aurangabad Bench in Tukaram v. Sham Balkrishnrao Selukar, 2025:BHC-AUG:29646, which recognised a coparcener’s preferential right under Section 22 in 2025, so the risk is live rather than theoretical.
The knock-on effects reach the drafting table. Sale deeds for undivided shares are likely to carry recitals and warranties that the co-heirs were offered the interest and declined, and cautious buyers will ask for those declinations in writing. Recorded family settlements will rise in popularity precisely because they document, in advance, who is entitled to what and pre-empt a later Section 22 fight. A family that puts its arrangement on paper, and registers it, buys itself certainty that a remembered understanding cannot.
Worth flagging for sellers too: a co-heir who wants to sell to an outsider is better served by first offering the share to the other heirs and documenting the offer than by selling quietly and hoping no one objects. A documented offer that the co-heirs decline is the seller’s best defence to a later claim. And it is far cheaper than litigation.
Where the law on Section 22 is still unsettled
The open questions after the ruling are the precise limitation period, how state land-ceiling and tenancy laws interact with a succession-based right, and whether the price-fixing mechanism should be codified. The Court settled that the right reaches farmland; it did not resolve every downstream issue, and practitioners expect the next wave of litigation to land on exactly these gaps.
Limitation is likely to generate the most litigation, because the Act sets no bespoke period and the applicable article of the Limitation Act, 1963 can be argued. Early signals suggest High Courts will be asked to pin down when the clock starts and which article applies, and until they do, cautious claimants will file early rather than test the boundary. The overlap with state land laws is the second front: because the Court grounded the right in succession rather than land tenure, it left room to argue how a succession-based preference sits alongside state ceiling and tenancy statutes in a given state.
As inherited rural holdings are increasingly fragmented and sold, Section 22 is likely to become a standard pleading in inherited-farmland disputes, which will itself push the unsettled questions to the front faster. There may also be reform pressure to codify a clear limitation period and a statutory price-fixing formula, so that the consideration does not depend on a court valuation every time. None of that is settled, and the honest position is that the procedure around a now-settled right is still taking shape. What is settled is the right itself.
Frequently asked questions
What is Section 22 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956?
Section 22 gives the Class-I heirs of a person who died intestate a preferential right to acquire the share of a co-heir who wants to transfer it to someone outside the family. It covers any immovable property and any business the deceased carried on. The right is enforced through an ordinary civil suit, and if the heirs cannot agree on a price, the court fixes it.
Who can exercise the preferential right under Section 22?
Only the other Class-I heirs of the same intestate, who inherited the property jointly, can exercise the right. A tenant, a distant relative, an outside co-owner, or a co-villager cannot. A person disqualified from inheriting is not an heir who can claim, because the right depends on actually having inherited the property as a co-heir.
When must the preferential right be exercised, before or after the sale?
Before the transfer is completed. The right operates on a proposed or contemplated transfer, so the heir must assert it while the sale is still in contemplation, not after it has closed. A heir who knows of the sale and does nothing risks losing the right through waiver by conduct, and a delayed suit can also be barred by limitation.
How is the consideration (price) fixed under Section 22(2)?
If the heirs agree on a price, that agreement governs. If they cannot, the court determines the consideration on an application, weighing fair market value, the nature and extent of the interest, and any dispute over improvements. A person who applies to have the price fixed and then refuses to buy at that figure is liable for the costs of the application.
What happens if two or more heirs both want to buy the share?
Section 22 gives the preference to the Class-I heir who offers the highest consideration. The court decides between competing heirs on that basis, which keeps the outcome fair to the selling heir and avoids a deadlock. Need or seniority does not decide it; the best offer does.
What counts as a “transfer” that triggers Section 22?
A proposed transfer of a co-heir’s interest to a person outside the group of heirs triggers the right, and a sale is the clearest example. The section is framed around a co-heir who “proposes to transfer,” which is why a heir should act on learning of an intended sale rather than wait. The right is aimed at transfers to outsiders, not at a transfer from one co-heir to another.
Does Section 22 apply to a gift, or only to a sale?
Section 22 is built around transfers for value, where the co-heirs can match a price, so its clearest application is to a sale. Whether a pure gift triggers the same preference is less settled, because a gift has no consideration for the heirs to match and the remedy is framed around acquiring the interest at a price. A heir facing a proposed gift of a co-heir’s share should take advice early rather than assume the position is identical to a sale.
How do I enforce my Section 22 preferential right in court?
File an ordinary civil suit in the court with jurisdiction over the property, asking for a declaration of your preferential right, an injunction to restrain the sale to an outsider, and a direction that the share be conveyed to you at a price the court fixes. There is no special tribunal or form. The plaint should set out the intestate succession, your co-heir status, the proposed transfer, your assertion of the right, and the refusal.
Is there a limitation period to claim under Section 22?
Yes. The Hindu Succession Act does not lay down a bespoke period, so the applicable article of the Limitation Act, 1963 governs, with the clock generally running from when the right is denied or the adverse transfer is made. Because the exact article can be contested, treat the limitation question as urgent and get advice early. Delay can defeat the claim both through limitation and through waiver.
What is the effect of a registered sale deed to a stranger on my Section 22 right?
A registered sale to an outsider does not automatically extinguish the right. Where the co-heirs’ preferential right was ignored, courts have directed the outside buyer to reconvey the share at a court-fixed price. The claim is much stronger if the heir had no notice and moves quickly, and weaker if the heir knew of the sale and let it proceed.
How did the 2005 amendment change the position on agricultural land?
The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 deleted Section 4(2), which had kept the devolution of tenancy rights in agricultural holdings outside the Act. Removing that clause took away the textual basis for excluding farmland, so the Act, and Section 22 with it, now applies to inherited agricultural land. The same amendment also made daughters coparceners under Section 6.
Are daughters entitled to the Section 22 preferential right?
Yes. A daughter inherits as a Class-I heir on the same footing as a son, so where she is a co-heir she has the same preferential right to buy out a sibling selling to an outsider. Marriage does not strip her of Class-I heir status. The 2005 amendment additionally enlarged many daughters’ shares by making them coparceners.
Who are Class I heirs under the Hindu Succession Act?
Class-I heirs are the closest family of the deceased, including the widow, the sons and daughters, the mother, and the heirs of any predeceased sons or daughters, among the others listed in the Schedule to the Act. They inherit first and in preference to all other heirs. Section 22’s preferential right belongs only to Class-I heirs who inherited the same property jointly.
Does Section 22 apply if only one heir inherited the whole property?
No. Section 22 needs two or more Class-I heirs who inherited the property together, because the right is a preference of one co-heir over an outsider when another co-heir wants to sell. A sole heir who took the entire property has no co-heir to prefer, so the section does not operate. The right presupposes shared, undivided inheritance.
What are the key case laws on Section 22 of the Hindu Succession Act?
The two leading Supreme Court authorities are Babu Ram (2019), which held that Section 22 applies to agricultural land after the deletion of Section 4(2), and Mahinder (2026), which affirmed that position, distinguished the older pre-emption ruling in Atam Prakash (1986), and confirmed Parliament’s competence. Older authorities like Gobind Dayal (1885) supply the “right of substitution” characterisation, and High Court rulings such as the Ghewarwala Jain line establish that the right must be asserted before the transfer is completed.
Does a will (Section 30) defeat the Section 22 preferential right?
Yes, effectively. Section 30 lets a Hindu dispose of property by will, and a valid will takes that property outside intestate succession. Because Section 22 applies only to property that devolved on intestacy among co-heirs, property validly given by will never enters the pool the preference operates on, so no co-heir has a Section 22 right over it.
Is agricultural land governed by state revenue law instead of the Hindu Succession Act?
Succession to inherited agricultural land is governed by the Hindu Succession Act, while state land laws continue to govern matters of tenure, ceilings and fragmentation in their own field. The 2026 Supreme Court ruling confirmed that Parliament is competent to legislate on succession, including to farmland, under Entry 5 of the Concurrent List. A buyer’s claim that farmland is purely a state-revenue matter, and so outside Section 22, does not hold after that ruling.
What is the full text of Section 22 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956?
In substance, Section 22 provides that where an interest in the immovable property of an intestate, or in a business the intestate carried on, devolves on two or more Class-I heirs and one of them proposes to transfer that interest, the other heirs have a preferential right to acquire it (sub-section 1); that the consideration is fixed by the court in the absence of agreement, with costs falling on an applicant who then refuses to buy at the court’s figure (sub-section 2); and that where two or more heirs want to acquire, the one offering the highest consideration is preferred (sub-section 3). In plain English: a co-heir must offer an inherited share to the other Class-I heirs before selling to an outsider, the court sets the price if the family cannot agree, and the highest bidder among the heirs wins.
References
Case Law
- Atam Prakash v. State of Haryana, (1986) 2 SCC 249. Supreme Court, 27 February 1986; struck down the consanguinity-based clauses of Section 15 of the Punjab Pre-emption Act, 1913 as violative of Articles 14 and 15.
- Babu Ram v. Santokh Singh (deceased) through his LRs, (2019) 14 SCC 162. AIR 2019 SC 1506; Supreme Court, 7 March 2019 (SC official reportable judgment). Indian Kanoon indexes the daily order and the review order dismissed 23 July 2019.
- Ghewarwala Jain v. Hanuman Prasad, AIR 1981 MP 250. Madhya Pradesh High Court, 7 January 1980.
- Gobind Dayal v. Inayatullah, (1885) ILR 7 All 775. Allahabad High Court (Full Bench), 9 February 1885.
- Mahinder v. Puran Singh, 2026 INSC 698. 2026 SCC OnLine SC 1335; 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 675; Supreme Court, 14 July 2026; see also the LiveLaw judgment page.
- Tukaram v. Sham Balkrishnrao Selukar, 2025:BHC-AUG:29646. Bombay High Court, Aurangabad Bench, 17 October 2025.
Statutes
- Punjab Pre-emption Act, 1913. Section cited: 15.
- Constitution of India, 1950. Article 14; Article 254; Entry 5 of List III (the Concurrent List), Seventh Schedule.
- Hindu Succession Act, 1956. Sections cited: 3(1)(f), 4(2) (repealed 2005), 6, 8, 22, 22(2), 30, and the Class I Schedule; Section 22 bare text on Indian Kanoon.
- Limitation Act, 1963. Cited generally for the limitation period governing a suit to enforce the preferential right.
- Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005. Deleted Section 4(2); made daughters coparceners under Section 6.
This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice on a specific inherited-property dispute or a Section 22 claim, consult a qualified advocate.