I'm a newbie to this forum, but looking at the insightful and thorough responses posted here, I'm hoping that I'll get an answer to the question that's bothering me for a while :)
My grandmother owned a 3 acres land and a house in Udupi, Karnataka. She had two children: my mother and my uncle. I have two brothers and two daughters. My uncle moved to Mumbai in 70s and barely returned to our home in Udupi. All these years, my mother lived there, did farming, paid taxes, and ensured that the property remained intact through Indira Gandhi's land declaration act.
Now that the land prices have soared high and the Hindu Succession Act in 2005 ended matrilineality, my uncle is asking that the property should be divided equally between my mother and him. My question to the experts on this forum is that whether it's legal and right? As per the rental tenancy act, the owners can't evict the tenants after 11 months of occupancy, so my mother living there 50+ years doesn't have any significance?
