Cognate

The Hindu Succession Act sorts an intestate's relatives into four groups: Class I heirs, Class II heirs, agnates, and cognates — in that order of priority. Cognate is the last and least-favoured of the four.

The workbook's definition: two people are cognates if they are related by blood or adoption, but not wholly through males. Somewhere in the chain connecting them, at least one link runs through a female relative — a mother, a sister, a daughter — rather than father-to-son all the way.

The order of succession, per Section 8: Class I → Class II → agnates → cognates. A cognate inherits only if there is no surviving Class I heir, no Class II heir, and no agnate.

Cognate versus agnate, the pairing the exam likes to test: an agnate is related wholly through males — father, father's father, and so on, an unbroken male chain. A cognate has the same kind of blood relationship, but the chain includes at least one female link somewhere along the way.

Among cognates themselves, Section 12's preference rules apply — the person with fewer degrees of ascent is preferred; where the degrees of ascent are equal, preference runs by degrees of descent; and where both are equal, the heirs take simultaneously. Degrees are computed inclusive of the intestate himself (Section 13), and every generation, ascending or descending, counts as one degree.

Illustrative scenario.

Mr Deshmukh dies intestate. He has no Class I heirs, no Class II heirs, and no surviving agnates. His closest surviving relative is his mother's brother's son — a maternal cousin.

Tracing that relationship: Mr Deshmukh to his mother (a female link) to her brother to that brother's son. Because the chain passes through his mother, a female relative, this cousin is a cognate, not an agnate — and, in the absence of anyone in Class I, Class II or the agnate category, he inherits as the nearest cognate.

Had the same cousin instead descended entirely through Mr Deshmukh's father's father's line — father to father's father to father's father's son, and so on, with every link male — he would be an agnate instead, and would rank ahead of any cognate under Section 8's order of priority.

Chapter 14 (Basics of Estate Planning), section 14.4.2, defines agnate and cognate immediately after the Class I and Class II heir lists, with Sections 8, 12 and 13 governing order of succession and preference among agnates and cognates. Expect a question distinguishing agnate from cognate on a given family tree, or applying the fewer-degrees-of-ascent preference rule.

• Agnate = wholly through males; cognate = at least one female link in the chain. This single distinction is the entire tested point.
• Cognates inherit only after Class I, Class II AND agnates are exhausted — the lowest priority of the four categories.
• Adoption counts the same as blood for both agnate and cognate classification.
• Fewer degrees of ascent is preferred among cognates (and agnates); equal degrees of ascent and descent means the heirs take simultaneously.