New Delhi, March 25 -- Courts in India are now making it clear that simply calling or acknowledging a property as 'ancestral' is no longer enough for an individual to claim rights over it. If you are a claimant, you must establish and demonstrate a documented chain of ownership tracing back to the original ancestor.

General descriptions and verbal statements about the property are treated as weak or insufficient evidence on their own. Such vague claims cannot form the sole basis for asserting rights over ancestral property.

Under Hindu law, ancestral property refers to undivided property that has passed down from a male ancestor, such as a great-grandfather, grandfather, or father, through successive generations without being sold or pa...