A recent explainer revisits how the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 originally preserved the male-only Mitakshara coparcenary, under which sons acquired ancestral property by birth while daughters had only a maintenance right or a share via a father's will. The 2005 amendment to Section 6 made daughters coparceners by birth, with the same rights, liabilities, and partition shares as sons, and removed the old 'notional partition' fiction that disadvantaged female heirs.
This reform sits at the intersection of personal law and constitutional equality: the earlier sex-based classification sat uneasily with Articles 14 and 15, and Article 39A informed Parliament's rationale. Article 300A made the retrospective-or-prospective question significant, since courts had to determine when a daughter's birthright interest crystallised. The Supreme Court's 2020 ruling settled this by holding that a daughter's coparcenary right arises by birth, irrespective of whether her father was alive in 2005.
For exams: remember Section 6's 2005 substitution, the 2020 Supreme Court clarification, and the Article 14/15/39A/300A/44 linkages, including the amendment's relevance to the UCC debate.