In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court has ruled that a man is legally entitled to nominate his married daughter to own his cooperative society flat after his death, depriving his wife and only son. The West Bengal Cooperative Societies Rules, 1987, stipulate that the owner of a flat in a cooperative society can nominate his house in favour of a person "belonging to his family". Taking this rule as their defence, along with other provisions of the WB Cooperative Societies Act, 1983, Biswa Ranjan Sengupta's wife and son challenged the decision of the managing committee of Purbanchal Housing Estate, Salt Lake City, Kolkata, to transfer ownership of a flat to Indrani Wahi, Sengupta's married daughter. Based on the objection, the deputy registrar of Cooperative Societies declined to record Indrani's name as the successor of the flat originally allotted to Sengupta, who in his last days was living with her because of "ill-treatment" by his wife and s...