Featured Snippet Answer (50 words)

Yes. A partition suit does not automatically abate when a party dies, because the right to seek partition is heritable and survives to the legal representatives. Under Order 22 CPC, the deceased party's heirs must be substituted within 90 days; failing this, the suit abates only against the deceased party, not the entire case.

Quick Answer Box

• Yes — partition suits survive the death of a party in almost all cases, since the right to sue for partition is a property right, not a personal one, and passes to the deceased's legal representatives.
• The key deadline is 90 days. Under Order 22 Rule 3/4 CPC, an application to substitute the deceased party's legal representatives must be filed within 90 days of death, or the suit abates as against that deceased party specifically.
• Abatement can often be set aside. If the 90-day window is missed, a further application to set aside the abatement can be filed within 60 days, with delay condonable on sufficient cause.
• The preliminary/final decree structure matters enormously. Once a preliminary decree is passed, the parties' shares are largely crystallized — death after that stage has a different, generally less disruptive, legal effect than death before it.
• No abatement at all occurs if death takes place between the conclusion of hearing and pronouncement of judgment, or after the decree has already been passed.

Key Takeaways

• The right to sue for partition survives death because it concerns property rights, not a personal cause of action — so the general rule of "no abatement if the right to sue survives" squarely applies.
• Missing the 90-day substitution deadline doesn't end the entire suit — it only abates the suit as against that specific deceased party, and even that can potentially be set aside later.
• A preliminary decree "crystallizes" the parties' shares; death after this stage, particularly during final decree proceedings, is treated differently and more leniently than death during the earlier, fact-finding stage of the suit.
• Courts apply Order 22's substitution rules to appeals as well as to suits — meaning a death during a partition appeal carries the same substitution obligations and risks.
• A strong case on the merits alone is not sufficient to excuse late substitution — "sufficient cause" for the delay must be independently and specifically established.
• Where the entire suit or appeal abates due to complete failure to substitute, courts retain limited power to set aside a full abatement in appropriate cases, so even a missed deadline is not always fatal.

Table of Contents

1. What the Law Says
2. Relevant Legal Provisions
3. Relevant Sections of Law
4. Latest Legal Position
5. Supreme Court Judgments
6. High Court Judgments
7. Court Procedure
8. Jurisdiction
9. Documents Required
10. Evidence Required
11. Timeline
12. Costs Involved
13. Common Defences
14. Common Mistakes
15. Risks and Limitations
16. Practical Legal Advice
17. Litigation Strategy
18. Alternative Remedies
19. Step-by-Step Action Plan
20. Frequently Asked Questions

1. What the Law Says

When a party to a pending lawsuit dies, Indian civil procedure asks one threshold question before anything else: does the right to sue survive the death? If it does not — as with a purely personal claim like defamation or malicious prosecution — the case simply ends for that party. But if it does survive, as it does for property-related claims, the suit continues, and the deceased party's legal representatives step into their place.

A suit for partition is a textbook example of a right that survives death. Partition is fundamentally about dividing property according to legal shares, and those shares don't evaporate when a coparcener or co-owner dies — they pass, by succession, to that person's heirs. The maxim actio personalis moritur cum persona ("a personal right of action dies with the person") simply has no application here, because a partition claim is a property right, not a personal one. This is why Indian courts have consistently and repeatedly held — including specifically in the context of partition suits — that death does not, by itself, end the litigation.

What you should do next: If a party to a pending partition suit has died, do not assume the litigation is automatically over — instead, immediately identify the deceased's legal heirs and begin the substitution process without delay, since the clock on doing so starts running from the date of death, not from when the court or the other parties formally notice it.

2. Relevant Legal Provisions

• Order 22, Rule 1, CPC — establishes the foundational rule: the death of a plaintiff or defendant shall not cause the suit to abate if the right to sue survives.
• Order 22, Rule 3, CPC — governs the death of one of several plaintiffs, or a sole plaintiff: where the right to sue survives, the court, on application, brings the deceased's legal representative on record and the suit proceeds; if no such application is made within the limitation period, the suit abates as against the deceased plaintiff.
• Order 22, Rule 4, CPC — the mirror provision for the death of a defendant: legal representatives must be brought on record within the prescribed period, failing which the suit abates as against that deceased defendant specifically.
• Order 22, Rule 6, CPC — a critical protective provision: there is no abatement at all where death occurs between the conclusion of the hearing and the pronouncement of judgment; the judgment, once pronounced, has the same force as if delivered before the death.
• Order 22, Rule 9, CPC — governs the effect of abatement and dismissal, and the court's power, on sufficient cause, to set aside an abatement.
• Order 22, Rule 10, CPC — governs devolution of interest generally (by assignment or otherwise) during the pendency of a suit, distinct from and generally not the primary route used for death-related substitution once a decree, particularly a preliminary decree, has already been passed.
• Order 22, Rule 11, CPC — extends the application of Order 22's provisions to appeals, meaning the same substitution obligations and abatement risks apply if a party dies while a partition appeal is pending.
• Limitation Act, 1963 — Article 120 (90 days for substitution of legal representatives) and Article 121 (60 days to set aside an abatement) — the two critical limitation periods governing this entire process.

What you should do next: Note precisely which stage your partition suit is in — before evidence, during trial, after a preliminary decree, or during final decree proceedings — since the applicable rule and the practical consequences of a missed deadline differ meaningfully across these stages.

3. Relevant Sections of Law

• Hindu Succession Act, 1956 — determines who the deceased party's legal heirs actually are for the purpose of substitution, and, since 2005, ensures daughters are included as equal coparcenary heirs, directly affecting who must be impleaded.
• Indian Succession Act, 1925 — governs succession where the deceased left a will, or where non-Hindu personal law applies, again determining the correct set of legal representatives to be substituted.
• Section 306, Indian Succession Act, 1925 — codifies the "survival of cause of action" principle for the broader law of executors and administrators, informing the general approach courts take when assessing whether a claim is personal (extinguished by death) or proprietary (survives).
• Section 5, Limitation Act, 1963 — the general condonation-of-delay provision, applicable to applications for substitution and for setting aside abatement, allowing a court to excuse delay on sufficient cause shown.
• Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 — Section 141 and Order 22 Rule 11 — extend the death-and-substitution framework to appeals and, with appropriate adaptation, to other proceedings.

What you should do next: If the deceased party left a will, obtain a certified copy promptly, since it may materially affect who qualifies as the correct legal representative to be substituted — a probate or succession dispute running parallel to the partition suit can complicate and delay the substitution process itself.

4. Latest Legal Position

The settled and consistently applied position across Indian courts is that a suit — and specifically a partition suit — does not abate merely because a party has died, so long as the right to sue survives, which it does for property claims as a matter of well-established principle. Courts have repeatedly rejected attempts to have partition suits declared abated on the sole ground of a party's death, holding squarely that Order 22 Rule 1 governs and that the suit continues with the deceased's legal representatives substituted in their place.

The more nuanced and frequently litigated question is the effect of death occurring at different procedural stages. Courts have drawn a clear and consequential distinction between death occurring before the conclusion of hearing (where the ordinary substitution machinery under Rules 3 and 4 applies, with abatement as a real risk if the 90-day window is missed) and death occurring after the conclusion of hearing but before judgment (where Rule 6 provides that there is no abatement at all, and the judgment stands as though pronounced before the death).

A further, partition-specific nuance concerns the preliminary and final decree structure unique to partition suits. Once a preliminary decree has been passed — determining the parties' respective shares — courts have observed that the rights between the parties are, in an important sense, already crystallized, even though the suit is not yet fully concluded pending the final decree (which addresses the actual, physical division of the property). Some High Court authority has held that Order 22's strict substitution requirements continue to apply with full force even at the final decree stage and in any appeal from the preliminary decree, meaning litigants cannot assume that a preliminary decree alone insulates them from abatement risk if a party dies afterward, particularly during a pending appeal.

What you should do next: If a party to your partition suit has died after a preliminary decree was passed but before the final decree, do not assume the substitution requirement is relaxed — file the substitution application within the standard 90-day window regardless of which stage the suit has reached, unless your advocate specifically advises that Rule 6 or a settled-decree exception clearly applies to your facts.

5. Supreme Court Judgments

In Melepurath Sankunni v. Thekittil Geopalankutty (also cited as M. Veerappa v. Evelyn Sequeria in related discussions of survival of actions), the Supreme Court addressed the survival of a cause of action where a suit had already been decreed before the death occurred, holding that where a suit is decreed and the plaintiff dies pending appeal, the legal representatives are entitled to continue the appeal, since the matter by then concerns the benefit or detriment to the deceased's estate, and the cause of action has effectively merged into the decree.

In M. Veerappa v. Evelyn Sequeira, the Supreme Court laid down the broader test for survival of a cause of action on death: where a suit claim is founded entirely in tort, it abates on death; but where the claim is founded partly on tort and partly on contract or property rights, the surviving, contractual or proprietary portion continues to trial and adjudication even after death — a foundational test courts continue to apply when assessing whether any part of a mixed claim, including elements sometimes bundled with a partition claim, survives.

While partition suits themselves rarely present a genuine "does the right survive" controversy — courts have consistently and without real dispute treated partition claims as surviving — this body of Supreme Court authority supplies the doctrinal foundation for why: a partition claim is proprietary in character, not personal, and therefore falls squarely within the category of claims Order 22 Rule 1 is designed to protect from abatement.

What you should do next: If your partition suit includes any additional personal claims bundled alongside the core partition relief (for example, a claim for mesne profits tied to a specific individual's occupation, or a defamation-adjacent claim arising from the same family dispute), have your advocate specifically assess which portions of the suit survive death and which may not, since a mixed suit can present a genuinely contested survival question even though the core partition relief itself will not.

6. High Court Judgments

The Patna High Court's line of authority — including Jamuna Rai v. Chandradip Rai and the related Lal Behari Gorain case — has been particularly influential in clarifying how Order 22 applies specifically to partition suits and their appeals. These decisions establish that even though a preliminary decree in a partition suit "crystallizes" the parties' respective shares, this crystallization does not exempt a subsequent appeal from Order 22's ordinary substitution requirements: where an appellant dies during the pendency of an appeal from a preliminary decree and the legal representatives are not substituted within the statutory period, the appeal abates, and an attempt to invoke the more general "assignment or devolution" provision under Rule 10 to sidestep this specific, mandatory substitution requirement will not succeed.

The Patna High Court has also clarified an important structural distinction: the restrictive definition of "suit" in Order 22 applies only to proceedings antecedent to the passing of a decree. Once a decree — including, in some contexts, a preliminary decree — has been passed, and particularly once the hearing has concluded, subsequent death does not trigger abatement in the same way, and Rule 6's protective principle becomes relevant. This means the specific timing of death relative to the decree, not just relative to the suit's overall pendency, is the operative fact courts examine closely.

The Jharkhand High Court, in Radhu Napit v. Tarapdo Napit, dismissed a writ petition seeking to have a partition suit declared abated on account of a defendant's death, affirming the trial court's rejection of that application and reinforcing Order 22 Rule 1's core principle that death alone, without more, does not abate a suit where the right to sue survives.

What you should do next: If your matter is currently on appeal from a preliminary decree in a partition suit, treat the death of any party during that appeal with the same urgency as death during the original trial — file for substitution within 90 days regardless of the fact that a preliminary decree has already been passed.

7. Court Procedure

1. Identify the death and the deceased party's legal heirs as soon as it becomes known to any party or their advocate — Order 22 Rule 10A specifically places a duty on the pleader to communicate the death of a party to the court.
2. File an application for substitution under Order 22 Rule 3 (death of plaintiff) or Rule 4 (death of defendant), naming the legal representatives to be brought on record, within 90 days of the date of death.
3. Serve notice on the proposed legal representatives and on the other parties to the suit.
4. The court determines who qualifies as the legal representative(s) — this can itself become contested where succession is disputed or unclear, sometimes requiring interim orders pending that determination.
5. If the 90-day window lapses without an application, the suit (or appeal) abates as against the deceased party specifically — not necessarily the entire proceeding, particularly where there are multiple plaintiffs or defendants and the right to sue survives against the others.
6. An application to set aside the abatement can be filed within 60 days of the abatement, supported by an affidavit showing sufficient cause for the delay in seeking substitution.
7. If the court sets aside the abatement, the suit is revived and continues as though the abatement had not occurred; if not, the litigation continues without the deceased party's estate being represented, which can materially affect the eventual decree's binding effect on that share.
8. Where a preliminary decree has already been passed and death occurs during final decree proceedings or a pending appeal, the same substitution process applies, with courts applying the specific partition-suit precedent discussed above.

What you should do next: As soon as a party's death becomes known, instruct your advocate to file the substitution application immediately rather than waiting to gather complete documentation — the application can often be filed promptly with basic proof of death and heirship, with additional supporting documents filed shortly after if needed, since the 90-day clock does not pause for administrative convenience.

8. Jurisdiction

• The substitution application is filed in the same court where the partition suit (or appeal) is pending — it is not a separate proceeding or a fresh suit.
• Where succession itself is genuinely disputed (for example, competing claims to being the deceased's rightful heir), this can sometimes require a preliminary determination, occasionally necessitating a separate succession certificate proceeding running in parallel, though the substitution application in the partition suit itself remains before the same court.
• On appeal, the substitution application is filed before the appellate court hearing the appeal, per Order 22 Rule 11's extension of these provisions to appeals.

What you should do next: If there is a genuine dispute about who the deceased's rightful legal heirs are, raise this promptly with your advocate — a parallel succession certificate application may be advisable to resolve that question cleanly rather than litigating it solely within the substitution application itself.

9. Documents Required

• Death certificate of the deceased party
• Proof of relationship of the proposed legal representatives to the deceased (birth certificates, family tree, prior succession documents)
• Legal heir certificate or succession certificate, where available or required
• Certified copy of any will left by the deceased, if applicable
• The substitution application itself, with supporting affidavit
• If seeking to set aside an abatement: an affidavit specifically explaining the reasons for the delay in filing the substitution application

What you should do next: Obtain the death certificate immediately upon a party's death — this single document is the foundation of the entire substitution process and its absence is one of the most common, entirely avoidable causes of delay.

10. Evidence Required

• Proof of death — the death certificate is generally sufficient and rarely contested.
• Proof of heirship — this can range from straightforward (an undisputed legal heir certificate) to genuinely contested (competing claims, disputed wills), and the evidentiary burden increases accordingly.
• Proof of sufficient cause for delay, where an application to set aside abatement is required — courts examine the specific facts explaining why substitution was not sought within 90 days, and a generalized or vague explanation is unlikely to succeed.

What you should do next: If you anticipate any dispute over who the correct legal representatives are, begin assembling supporting documentation (family records, any available will, prior correspondence) well before filing the substitution application, since a contested heirship question can meaningfully slow down the process if not anticipated.

11. Timeline

• Substitution application: must be filed within 90 days of the date of death (Article 120, Limitation Act, 1963).
• Application to set aside abatement: must be filed within 60 days of the abatement (Article 121, Limitation Act, 1963), with further delay potentially condonable under Section 5 of the Limitation Act on sufficient cause.
• Disposal of the substitution application itself: typically resolved within weeks to a few months, though contested heirship can extend this considerably.
• Overall suit timeline: unaffected in principle by a properly and timely handled substitution, though any dispute over the substitution itself can add meaningful delay to the underlying partition proceedings.

What you should do next: Calendar the 90-day deadline the moment you learn of a party's death, treating it with the same urgency as any other hard litigation deadline — this single administrative step prevents the vast majority of abatement disputes covered in this guide.

12. Costs Involved

• Court fee on the substitution application, typically modest.
• Advocate's fees for drafting and filing the application, and for any contested hearing on heirship or on setting aside an abatement.
• Costs of obtaining death certificates, heir certificates, and supporting genealogical documentation.
• Potential costs awarded against a party whose application to set aside abatement is found to lack genuine sufficient cause and appears to be a delaying tactic.

What you should do next: Budget for the possibility that a contested heirship determination could require additional evidence-gathering costs beyond the routine, modest cost of an uncontested substitution application.

13. Common Defences

• No sufficient cause for delay, opposing an application to set aside abatement where the 90-day window was missed without adequate explanation.
• Incorrect legal representatives named, where the opposing party disputes that the persons sought to be substituted are actually the deceased's rightful heirs.
• The right to sue does not survive, in the rare case where a partition suit is bundled with genuinely personal claims that do not survive death — though this defence has little traction against the core partition relief itself.
• The suit or appeal has already fully abated, where all parties on one side died without any timely substitution, potentially ending that side's claim entirely absent a successful application to set aside a complete abatement.

What you should do next: If you anticipate the opposing side may challenge the identity of your proposed legal representatives, gather clear supporting documentation (succession certificate, undisputed family records) before filing, to minimize the risk of a prolonged, contested hearing on this preliminary question.

14. Common Mistakes

1. Assuming a partition suit automatically continues without any formal substitution application being filed.
2. Missing the 90-day deadline due to family grieving, administrative delay, or uncertainty about who the correct heirs are.
3. Failing to notify the court of a party's death promptly, despite the pleader's duty to do so under Order 22 Rule 10A.
4. Assuming that a preliminary decree fully insulates the matter from abatement risk during subsequent appeal or final decree proceedings.
5. Filing a vague, generalized explanation for delay when seeking to set aside an abatement, rather than specific, fact-based sufficient cause.
6. Overlooking that abatement (where it occurs) typically applies only against the specific deceased party, not the entire suit, and failing to pursue the case against the surviving parties in the interim.
7. Neglecting to resolve a genuinely disputed heirship question early, allowing it to derail or delay the underlying partition proceedings.

What you should do next: If you are unsure who the deceased's legal heirs are, do not wait for certainty before filing — file the substitution application with your best good-faith identification of the heirs within the 90-day window, and seek any necessary correction or addition afterward, since filing something within time is far safer than filing nothing while you wait to be certain.

15. Risks and Limitations

• Abatement against the deceased party's share if substitution is missed and not later set aside — this can complicate, though not necessarily defeat, the overall partition, particularly regarding that specific share.
• Delay and cost of any contested heirship or "sufficient cause" hearing.
• A genuinely late or unexplained delay may not be condoned, particularly where courts find the explanation for missing the 90-day window unpersuasive — "a strong case on the merits" alone is explicitly not sufficient to excuse the delay.
• Complexity where succession itself is disputed, potentially requiring a parallel or preliminary determination that adds time and cost.
• Appeal-stage risk is easy to overlook — parties sometimes assume that once a decree is obtained, death-related substitution concerns are behind them, when in fact the same rules apply with full force to any subsequent appeal.

What you should do next: Treat every stage of a partition suit — trial, preliminary decree, final decree proceedings, and any appeal — as independently subject to the same 90-day substitution discipline, rather than assuming any one stage offers automatic protection.

16. Practical Legal Advice

• Notify the court of a party's death immediately, and instruct your advocate to file the substitution application without waiting for complete documentation to be assembled.
• Identify all potential legal heirs early, including those who may not be actively participating in the litigation, since an incomplete substitution can itself be challenged later.
• Keep the death certificate and basic heirship documents readily accessible throughout the litigation, given how frequently these become urgently needed on short notice.
• If a dispute over heirship is likely, consider a parallel succession certificate application to resolve that question cleanly rather than litigating it solely within the substitution application.
• Do not treat a missed 90-day deadline as automatically fatal — consult an advocate promptly about filing an application to set aside abatement within the further 60-day window, supported by genuine, specific sufficient cause.

What you should do next: If you are currently involved in a partition suit with elderly or unwell parties, discuss proactively with your advocate what the substitution process would involve in the event of a death, so your family is not navigating unfamiliar procedure for the first time under the pressure of a hard deadline and a fresh bereavement.

17. Litigation Strategy

• Move quickly and decisively on substitution — this is one of the few areas of civil litigation where the procedural deadline is genuinely unforgiving, and delay carries real risk regardless of the underlying merits of the partition claim.
• Where multiple plaintiffs or defendants exist on the deceased's side, assess whether the suit can meaningfully proceed against the surviving parties even before the substitution question for the deceased is fully resolved, to avoid unnecessary overall delay.
• If facing a contested heirship dispute, weigh whether resolving it through a focused, parallel succession proceeding is faster than litigating it as a preliminary issue within the substitution application itself.
• In appeals from a preliminary decree, build in a specific monitoring process for party deaths given the elevated stakes — an abated appeal can leave a first-instance decree standing, which may be far more consequential than a similar lapse earlier in the trial.
• Where an entire side has effectively abated due to non-substitution, assess promptly whether a strong, well-documented application to set aside that abatement is worth pursuing, since courts have shown genuine willingness to grant such relief where sufficient cause is properly established.

What you should do next: Ask your advocate to build a simple internal tracking mechanism for party-death and substitution deadlines the moment any party to a long-running partition suit is elderly or in poor health, rather than treating this as a reactive, ad hoc concern.

18. Alternative Remedies

• Family settlement — where death has occurred and substitution disputes threaten to complicate matters further, a negotiated family settlement among all heirs (old and new) can sometimes resolve the underlying partition faster than continued litigation.
• Succession certificate proceeding — a focused, parallel remedy to establish heirship cleanly where this is genuinely disputed.
• Application under Order 22 Rule 9 (setting aside abatement) — the primary remedy where a substitution deadline has been missed.
• Revision or appeal against an order refusing to set aside an abatement, where the trial court's exercise of discretion is genuinely challengeable.

What you should do next: If settlement among the (now expanded) set of heirs seems feasible following a death, raise this possibility with your advocate early — resolving the partition by agreement can sometimes proceed faster than resolving a contested substitution dispute through further litigation.

19. Step-by-Step Action Plan

1. Notify the court of the death immediately through your advocate.
2. Identify the deceased's legal heirs using available family records, a will (if any), or a legal heir/succession certificate.
3. File the substitution application under Order 22 Rule 3 or 4 within 90 days of the date of death.
4. Serve notice on the proposed legal representatives and other parties.
5. If the 90-day window is missed, promptly consult your advocate about filing an application to set aside the abatement within 60 days, with a genuine, specific explanation for the delay.
6. Monitor every subsequent stage of the suit — final decree proceedings and any appeal — with the same substitution discipline.
7. Where heirship is disputed, consider a parallel succession certificate proceeding to resolve the question cleanly.

What you should do next: If a party to your partition suit has recently died, contact your advocate today to confirm the exact date of death and begin the substitution application immediately — every day that passes narrows your margin within the 90-day window.

20. Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can a partition suit continue after the death of a party? Yes. A partition suit does not abate merely because a party has died, since the right to seek partition is a property right that survives to the deceased's legal representatives.
2. What happens if a party to a partition suit dies? The deceased's legal representatives must be substituted in their place within 90 days; the suit then continues with them standing in the deceased's shoes.
3. What is the deadline to substitute legal representatives after a party's death? 90 days from the date of death, under Article 120 of the Limitation Act, 1963.
4. What happens if the 90-day deadline is missed? The suit abates as against the deceased party specifically (not necessarily the entire suit); an application to set aside this abatement can still be filed within a further 60 days, on sufficient cause.
5. Does death after a preliminary decree affect a partition suit differently? It can — while the parties' shares are largely crystallized by a preliminary decree, Order 22's substitution requirements generally continue to apply to subsequent final decree proceedings and any appeal, so the same discipline should be maintained.
6. Does the entire partition suit end if substitution is not done for one deceased party? No, not necessarily — where there are multiple parties and the right to sue survives against the others, abatement typically applies only to the deceased party's specific share or position, not the whole case.
7. Is there no abatement at all in some situations? Correct — under Order 22 Rule 6, if death occurs between the conclusion of the hearing and the pronouncement of judgment, there is no abatement, and the judgment stands as if delivered before the death.
8. Do Order 22's substitution rules apply to appeals as well? Yes. Order 22 Rule 11 extends these provisions to appeals, meaning a death during a pending partition appeal carries the same 90-day substitution obligation.
9. Can a strong case on the merits excuse a missed substitution deadline? No — courts have specifically held that a strong case on the merits, by itself, is not sufficient cause to condone delay in seeking substitution or in setting aside an abatement.
10. Who should be substituted as the legal representative? Generally the deceased's legal heirs under the applicable succession law (Hindu Succession Act, Indian Succession Act, or other personal law), though where a will exists or heirship is disputed, this determination can require closer examination.
11. Should I hire a lawyer to handle substitution after a death in a partition suit? Given the strict, unforgiving nature of the limitation periods involved and the potential complexity of heirship determination, professional legal assistance is strongly advisable, ideally engaged immediately upon the party's death.
12. What should I do today if a party to my partition suit has just died? Obtain the death certificate, identify the likely legal heirs, and instruct your advocate to file the substitution application without delay — do not wait to gather every supporting document before beginning the process.

Conclusion

Death understandably feels like it should change everything about a pending lawsuit — and in many kinds of litigation, it does. But partition suits sit in a specific, well-settled category where Indian law has decided, clearly and consistently, that the underlying right is about property, not personality, and property rights don't die with the person who held them. What death does change is procedure: the clock starts running the moment a party passes away, and Order 22 of the CPC gives litigants a defined, if narrow, 90-day window to bring the right heirs onto the record before that specific party's position in the case is put at risk. The preliminary-and-final-decree structure unique to partition suits adds one more layer worth understanding — shares crystallize early, but the obligation to keep the record properly substituted doesn't relax until the case, in every one of its stages including appeal, is truly finished. If you are navigating a death in the middle of a partition dispute, the single most important thing you can do is act immediately rather than let grief or uncertainty about the right heirs slow down a deadline that the law, quite deliberately, does not wait for.