| Family Law II

Family Law is one body of law that interacts with everyone who is part of some family or those who wish to form a family of some kind. It covers a broad range of deeply personal affairs including marriage, divorce, succession, among others. Family Law operates in that space where personal meets personal or personal meets public. Family Law is traditionally covered in law schools in India in two segments, Family Law I covering matrimonial remedies and Family Law II covering law relating to inheritance.

Family Law II deals with the philosophical origins of inheritance, testamentary and intestate succession. The rules of succession vary based on the personal law followed by the respective religions, part of which is codified, and there is a wide array of customary practices based on region, religion, and culture. In this course, the students will get a semblance of the different inheritance schemes followed by the people in India, with a detailed engagement with Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Parsi law of succession. The course is designed to understand these legal systems in a holistic way, to succinctly understand the internal logic, coherence, and normative values. The students are then encouraged to critically look at these systems to understand the exclusion or injustice built in the very design, structure, and silences of law. Through a series of engagements in class and outside, the students are also encouraged to reimagine laws for a just and inclusive world and pragmatic ways to achieve the end goal, that’s justice. The laws are not to be made in isolation, but keeping in mind the socio-cultural-politico-economic realities.

This course is a must-do for every lawyer, and could benefit personally in family estate planning and inheritance. Apart from litigation and professionalised wealth management enterprises alongside taxation and property, this course would be beneficial for those interested in law, polity, and governance. Beyond that, an intuitive and nuanced understanding of the subject would result in improving the quality of discussions in the public realm.