Inheritance Rights Of Digital Assets In India And Beyond: A Comparative Analysis With Policy Recommendations
Akansha Sharma, Amity Law School, Noida
Shashwat Dubey, Amity Law School, Noida
A Comparative Study of India and the BRICS Jurisdictions on the Succession, Access, and Taxation of Cryptocurrency, Virtual Property, and Online Accounts
ABSTRACT
The proliferation of cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens, monetized social media and gaming accounts, domain names, and cloud-stored content has created a new and largely unregulated category of inheritable wealth: the digital estate. This paper examines whether India's succession framework anchored in the Indian Succession Act 1925 and the Hindu Succession Act 1956 is equipped to handle the transmission of such assets upon death and situates that inquiry within a comparative analysis of the other BRICS jurisdictions (Brazil, Russia, China, and South Africa) alongside external benchmarks such as the United States' Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) and the United Kingdom's Property (Digital Assets etc.) Act 2025.
Drawing on statutory text and recent case law, including the Madras High Court's October 2025 decision in Rhutikumari v. Zanmai Labs, which for the first time judicially classified cryptocurrency as property under Indian law, and industry data on dormant and permanently lost crypto holdings, the paper finds that India's legal architecture remains fragmented across the Indian Succession Act 1925, the Information Technology Act 2000, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, and the Income-tax Act 1961, none of which was drafted with digital assets in mind. A comparative review of BRICS jurisdictions reveals a common pattern: judicial or administrative recognition of digital assets as property is outpacing legislative reform everywhere except, arguably, China, where a dedicated judicial case category now exists. The paper concludes with India-specific recommendations, including a dedicated Digital Assets Succession framework, integration of the DPDP Act's nomination mechanism with testamentary law, and mandatory disclosure norms for exchanges and BRICS-level recommendations for a shared framework addressing cross-border access, valuation, and mutual recognition of digital executors.
Keywords: digital assets; digital inheritance; cryptocurrency; succession law; Indian Succession Act 1925; Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023; RUFADAA; BRICS; comparative law; Rhutikumari v. Zanmai Labs.
