Vow of poverty does not deprive priests, nuns of right to ancestral property: Kerala HC

The Kerala High Court has ruled that priests and nuns have right to ancestral property, in what has emerged as a landmark judgement. 

The court on Wednesday observed that the public vow of poverty, which priests and nuns make in church, does not deprive them of their constitutional right to property. The ruling was given by a division bench while considering an appeal that challenged a lower court's ruling that a priest does not have right to ancestral property as he takes a religious vow at the time of attaining priesthood. 

The ruling assumes significance in states like Kerala which has seen numerous instances where siblings and relatives force the woman in the family to be a nun so that they could get her share of ancestral property as well.

There is no statutory prohibition for a Christian priest or nun in the matter of intestate or testamentary succession of property, a Times of India report quoted the HC judgement on Wednesday. "To hold that one would suffer a 'civil death' and be deprived of his property on entering into the Holy Order would be a naked infringement of Article 300-A of the Constitution of India (right to property)," the court ruled.

"Of course it is the volition of a Hindu ascetic or a Christian priest to relinquish his right over his personal property in favour of a mutt or monastery in a manner known to law. But there cannot be any automatic deprivation of property acquired by way of intestate or testamentary succession by the mere fact that one has entered into the religious order and renounced his worldly pleasures," the judgement stressed.

• Kerala High Court
• right to property