Will not invalidate just for omission of legal heirs: SC | India News
NEW DELHI: Observing that a person is legally entitled to dispose of his property as he wishes, the Supreme Court has ruled that a will cannot be revoked on the ground that the legal heirs are deprived of their share, reports Amit Anand Chaudhary.A bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Vijay Bishnoi held that exclusion of natural heirs from an estate cannot itself be considered as a doubtful circumstance and dismissed the plea of a chartered accountant’s wife and child challenging the validity of his will.Exclusion alone does not invalidate a will, SC said, unless the exclusion of legal heirs does not affect the validity or execution of the will with doubtful circumstances. It noted that the will in question clearly stated that the testator did no injustice to his wife, children or other relatives and that he gave them enough.In a will made in 1983, CA bequeathed all the scheduled properties in favor of his only sister. He died just six months later and a legal battle ensued between family members that lasted for 43 years before the Supreme Court finally ruled.“The contention of the appellants (wife, children) that they, being the natural heirs of the testator, have been completely excluded without any reason and such exclusion creates a doubtful situation surrounding the execution of the will is legally invalid. It is well settled that mere deprivation cannot be the cause of total deprivation of natural inheritance. The idea behind the execution of a will is to interfere with the normal line of succession,” it said.The CA’s will, the bench said, “was duly executed by the testator in a substantial state of mind voluntarily beyond his free will and was proved by the testimony of a certified witness examined by the trial court. This witness clearly stated that the testator executed his will in the presence of both the testator and the testator and that he signed each other.”
