By Shaan Katari Libby
On the occasion of International Women’s Day (March 8, 2026), the 2026 campaign slogan was reiterated: “Rights. Justice. Action. For All Women and Girls”, urging concrete steps to remove legal, social, and economic barriers. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, called for dismantling discriminatory laws, noting that women only have 64 percent of the legal protections of men.
The Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, demanded an end to impunity for violence, urged funding for women’s movements, and stressed the need to break the silence on rights denials.
Shifting our gaze to India, we have come a long way in terms of rights of women. In the lines that follow, our focus will be on property rights, domestic rights and rights in the workplace.
Today, women are no longer chattel to be reared and passed on to another like a piece of property. While old mindsets may take time to change, legally speaking following the 2005 amendments to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, daughters now have equal rights to sons, making them coparceners by birth in joint family property, including rights to claim partition and become karta. Daughters, whether married or unmarried, have the same rights, liabilities, and responsibilities in ancestral property as a son.
Unusually and refreshingly given the context, this will be retrospectively applicable as laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of Vineeta Sharma vs Rakesh Sharma on August 11, 2020. Here Justice Arun Mishra stated in his judgement: “…daughters cannot be deprived of their right of equality conferred upon them by Section 6.” Since the right in coparcenary is by birth, it is not necessary that the father coparcener should be living, and the rights apply regardless of whether the daughter was born before or after the amendment, provided the father was alive on September 9, 2005.
The amendment does not invalidate any disposition, alienation, or partition of property that took place before December 20, 2004. The Act applies to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs, removing gender discrimination in inheritance, including for agricultural land. The amendment omitted Section 23 (restriction on partition for female heirs) and Section 24, aimed at removing gender bias within the legal system. The amendment ensures that women are treated as equal heirs, significantly boosting their financial independence and empowerment. This is a significant step forward for most Indian women. As per the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, there is no distinction between the rights of men and women, which means, after the death of their ancestor both girl and boy become legal heirs of the inherited property. The amount of the property share of a female heir is entitled to half of that of the male heirs because as per Muslim law, upon marriage a female receives mehr and maintenance from her husband whereas males only have the ancestral property.
Moving to domestic rights of women. There was a time when marriage was seen as sacred and forever. In an ideal world this would be so, but we do not live in such a world. Hence, the need to exit an unhappy relationship is essential. In the case of Shilpa Sailesh vs Varun Sreenivasan (2023) 2 SCC 1, the Constitution bench made it clear that nobody will be forced to stay in a marriage.
A judgement written by Justice Sanjiv Khanna held: The “…Court, in exercise of power under Article 142(1) of the Constitution of India, has the discretion to dissolve the marriage on the ground of its irretrievable breakdown. This discretionary power is to be exercised to do ‘complete justice’ to the parties, wherein this Court is satisfied that the facts established show that the marriage has completely failed and there is no possibility that the parties will cohabit together, and continuation of the formal legal relationship is unjustified. The Court, as a court of equity, is required to also balance the circumstances and the background in which the party opposing the dissolution is placed.”
Often, a woman stays in a sad marriage for financial reasons. This too has eased up now with the recent cases of maintenance, such as Sukhdev Singh vs Sukhbir Kaur, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 299 where it was held that a spouse whose marriage has been declared void under Section 11 of the 1955 Act is entitled to seek permanent alimony or maintenance from the other spouse by invoking Section 25 of the 1955 Act and even if the marriage is void or voidable, pending the final disposal nothing precludes the granting of maintenance pendente lite.
The Supreme Court in Hiral P Harsora And Ors vs Kusum Narottamdas Harsora (October 6, 2016) in a judgement by Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman held that the words “adult male” in the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, were violative of equality principles under Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution. After this judgement, a woman can file a domestic violence complaint against any relative of the husband or partner, including female relatives, thereby expanding the scope of protection available to women.
Maternity rights too have widened recently. In the case of Deepika Singh vs Central Administrative Tribunal and Ors 2022, the Supreme Court held: “The fact that the Appellant’s spouse had two biological children from his first marriage would not impinge upon the entitlement of the Appellant to avail maternity leave for her sole biological child. The fact that she was granted child care leave in respect of the two biological children born to her spouse from an earlier marriage may be a matter on which a compassionate view was taken by the authorities at the relevant time.
Gendered roles assigned to women and societal expectations mean that women are always pressed upon to take a disproportionate burden of childcare work,” said Justice DY Chandrachud.
A woman’s place in the workplace has become better than ever before. According to Section 2(n) of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, “sexual harassment” includes any one or more of the following unwelcome acts or behaviour (whether directly or by implication) namely: (i) physical contact and advances; or (ii) a demand or request for sexual favours; or (iii) making sexually coloured remarks; or (iv) showing pornography; or (v) any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature. The letter of the law has been reinforced via strong cases like HCL Technologies vs Parthasarathy (WP No 5643 of 2020) in which Justice Manjula of the Madras High Court held that “It is the fundamental discipline and understanding with which the employees of different gender are expected to interact with each other where decency is the yardstick and nothing else. While speaking about the decency it is not the decency which the respondent thinks within himself, but how he makes the other gender to feel about his actions…. Strict rules of evidence has got no application to the type of inquiry that is being made by the ICC on the charges of sexual harassment against the women employees.”
The judgement went on to clearly say that “as the inquiry is a quasi judicial one, it is sufficient to come at a logical conclusion basing upon the materials which are relevant to the issue. In the given circumstances of the case, if the statements of witnesses, if appreciated holistically that would only make out the charges as alleged against the respondent. Not yielding to hyper-technicalities even when the respondent pulled the inquiring authority, can also be considered as a feature of fairness during inquiry. The Labour Court ought not to have given much significance to the non-furnishing of CCTV footage to the respondent.”
This goes to show that women’s perspectives matter, what women find appropriate or inappropriate matter, and in short the courts and the statutes are in support of women. Advocate Suchitra Jain has noticed in her legal career spanning 20 years that “women are standing up for themselves more than ever before and winning cases as well. Numbers of women advocates have increased too and the hard work is paying off.”
We have a long way to go, but the road is well lit and brighter than ever before in our history. Empowered and educated women make empowered and educated youngsters and a stronger tomorrow for us all.
—The writer is a barrister-at-law, Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn, UK, and a leading advocate in Chennai. With research inputs from Anushya Saravanan