Nepal's Equal Inheritance Reform — From the 1995 Dhungana Ruling to the 2017 Civil Code

In 1993, lawyer and women's-rights activist Meera Kumari Dhungana, backed by the Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD), filed a writ petition arguing that the Muluki Ain's inheritance rules — which let daughters claim a share of parental property only if unmarried and over 35, and required them to return it upon marriage — violated the equality guarantee of Nepal's 1990 Constitution.

In its 1995 ruling, the Supreme Court agreed that the provision was discriminatory and directed Parliament to reform it. The resulting 11th Amendment to the Muluki Ain (2002) let daughters inherit regardless of age, but kept a partial condition: property still had to be returned if a daughter married. Full, unconditional parity for sons and daughters — and for wives, widows and divorced women — arrived only with Nepal's National Civil Code, 2017.

Years after full legal equality took effect, an IOM assessment found that only 19.7% of Nepali women own land in their own name, and just 11% independently control land they nominally own.

The reform is a textbook case of law outrunning practice — evidence that formal inheritance rights have not yet closed the gap in actual ownership, particularly in rural and customary-law-influenced communities.