By- Simran Naresh, UG Law Student, Amity University Noida
Abstract
India's digital economy has generated an unprecedented quantum of digital wealth - over fifteen million KYC-verified Virtual Digital Asset holders, a creator economy sustaining two million livelihoods, and digital property of every description. Yet Indian succession law, codified for a world of tangible assets, provides no framework for what happens to this wealth upon death. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, brought into force on 14 November 2025, introduces a nomination mechanism for posthumous data rights but does not constitute a succession framework. This article undertakes a critical evaluation of the legislative gaps, examines the constitutional dimensions of post-mortem privacy under Article 21 and Article 300-A, draws comparative lessons from the United States (RUFADAA), Germany (BGH Facebook 2018), France, Italy, and the EU (GDPR), and proposes the essential architecture of a Digital Estates and Succession Act (DESA) for India.
Keywords: Digital Succession; Post-Mortem Privacy; DPDP Act 2023; Virtual Digital Assets; Indian Succession Act; Hindu Succession Act; RUFADAA; Puttaswamy; Article 300-A; Digital Estates and Succession Act.
I. INTRODUCTION
The death of a person in twenty-first century India triggers two parallel legal events. The first is well-understood: succession law determines who inherits the deceased's property. The second is entirely unaddressed: the deceased's digital life - their cryptocurrency, monetised social media accounts, cloud-stored documents, domain names, and digital income streams - exists in a legal void, subject to no coherent legal framework. It is a structural failure that grows more consequential with every passing year.
The scale of what is at stake is considerable. India ranked first globally in the Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index for 2024 - the second consecutive year at the top of that ranking - with over one billion internet users and a digital economy projected to contribute over one trillion dollars to GDP by 2030. Over fifteen million KYC-verified Virtual Digital Asset (VDA) holders are registered with SEBI and FIU-IND-reporting exchanges. For every one of these holders who dies intestate without a legal framework for digital succession, their estate faces an unresolvable gap. At the outer extreme of this problem, Chainalysis estimates that approximately 20% of all Bitcoin in existence may be permanently inaccessible due to lost or abandoned wallets. The law has nothing to say about any of this.
The Indian Succession Act, 1925 (ISA) and the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 (HSA) were drafted for a world of tangible property. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act), brought into force on 14 November 2025 alongside the DPDP Rules, 2025, introduces a nomination mechanism for posthumous data rights but does not constitute a succession framework. The Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code, 2024 - India's most contemporary succession reform - is entirely silent on digital assets. The Madras High Court's landmark judgment in Rhutikumari v. Zanmai Labs Pvt. Ltd. (2025), which for the first time classified cryptocurrency as property capable of being held in trust, fills a critical doctrinal gap but underscores, in the same breath, how much legislative work remains undone. This article argues that a standalone Digital Estates and Succession Act (DESA) is urgently required, and proposes the essential architecture of that Act.
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