Punjab Hindu Women’s Rights to Agricultural Land Ordinance, 1959 (W.P. Ordinance XI of 1959).

This Ordinance aims to consolidate the Hindu Law governing Hindu Women’s rights to agricultural land in the Province of the Punjab. It establishes agricultural land inheritance requirements when a Hindu governed by any other school of Hindu Law or by customary law dies intestate leaving separate agricultural land, his widow, or if there are more than one widow all his widows together, shall, subject to the provisions of sub-section (3), be entitled in respect of the agricultural land in respect of which he dies intestate to the same share as a son. Provided that the widow of a predeceased son shall inherit in like manner as a son if there is no son surviving of such predeceased son, and shall inherit in like manner as son’s son if there is surviving a son or son’s son of such predeceased son. Provided further that the same provision shall apply mutatis mutandis to the widow of a predeceased son of a predeceased son. When a Hindu governed by any school of Hindu Law other than the Dayabhaga School or by customary law dies having at the time of his death an interest in a Hindu joint family agricultural land, his widow shall, subject to the provisions of sub-section (3), be entitled to the same interest in the agricultural land as he himself had. Any interest devolving on a Hindu widow under the provisions of this section shall be the limited interest known in Hindu Law as a Hindu women’s estate, provided however that she shall have the same right of claiming partition as a male owner. The provisions of this section shall not apply to an estate which by a customary or other rule of succession or by the terms of the grant applicable thereto descends to a single heir or to any property to which the Succession Act of 1925 applies.