Can an ancestral impartibly property be regarded as coparcenary property?

An impartibly estate is not held in coparcenary though it may be joint family property. But at times it is referred to as coparcenary and a distinction is drawn between present rights, that is, the right to demand a partition and the right to joint enjoyment, and future rights. In the case of an impartibly estate, that right to partition and the right to the joint enjoyment are from the very nature of the estate incapable of existence and there is no coparcenary to this extent.

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Therefore, no coparcener can prevent alienation by the holder of the estate for the time being either by gift or by will. Other coparceners are not even entitled to the maintenance out of the estate. But as regards fur­ther right that is the right to survivorship, the property is treated as coparcenary property so that on death of the intestate of the last holder it will devolve by survivorship.

A coparcener is not entitled to prevent alienation of it by the holder for the time being either by gift or by will unless by a special family custom his power of alienation is excluded from the holder.

General principles in regard to succession to impartible estate are:

The succession is governed by the rules which governed the succession to partible estate subject to such modifications only as flow from the character of the impartible estate.

The only modification which impartibility suggests in re­gard to the right of succession is existence of a special rule for the selection of a single heir when there are several heirs of the same class who would be entitled to succeed to the property if it were partible under the general Hindu Law.

In the absence of any special custom, the rule of primo­geniture furnishes a ground of preference.

In determining the single heir firstly we determine the class of heir who would be entitled to succeed to the property if it were partible then we select the single heir, applying the special rule.

According to the rule of primogeniture the eldest son is en­titled to succeed. The eldest son is the son born first in point of time and not the first born son of the senior wife.