Judgment

CHANDRACHUD, J.:-This appeal by certificate raises a question as regards the validity of a will executed by an eighty year old woman five days before her death. The testatrix Juggo Bai had a much married son called Beni Chand, the last of whose three marriages has given birth of this long litigation. Beni Chands first wife, Chameli Bai, died leaving behind Respondents 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8 as her heirs. His second wife Kamla Kunwar is Respondent 1. Respondent 4 is her daughter and respondents 9 and 10 are her grand-daughters. Beni Chand had no male issue from his two wives and therefore, in 1928, he gambled for a son by marrying Ved Kumari. That marriage created dissensions in the family, partly because Ved Kumari belonged to a different caste but more substantially because the entry of yet another woman in the household was like a last straw. On October 26, 1961 Jaggo Bai made a will disinheriting her son Beni Chand and the children born of Ved Kumari, and bequeathing her extensive properties to the progeny born of Chameli Bai and to Kamla Kunwar and her progeny. Jaggo Bai died on October 31, 1961.

2. Kamla Kunwar who was appointed under Jaggo Bais will as an executrix filed a petition in the Allahabad High Court for probate of the will. Beni Chand filed a caveat contending that the will was a forgery and was prepared in collusion with one Dwijendra Nigam, an advocate, while Jaggo Bai was lying in an unconscious state. A learned single Judge of the High Court dismissed the petition on the ground that the propounder of the will had failed to explain the suspicious circumstances surrounding the execution of the will. That judgment was reversed in appeal by a Division Bench of the High Court, which upheld the validity of the will. This appeal by certificate is directed against the appellate judgment of the High Court.

3. There is no gain saying the fact that the execution of the will is shrouded in circumstances which require a cogent explanation, particularly as the testatrix was advanced in age and the provisions of the will are prima facie unnatural. But, we do not see enough reason for rejecting the conclusion of the High Court that the executrix who propounded the will has offered a satisfactory explanation of those circumstances. The relations between Jaggo Bai and her son Beni Chand were strained beyond words. A long span of over 30 years following upon Beni Chands marriage with Ved Kumari is littered with a spate of litigations between the mother and son. Beni Chand gave to his mother a good look of law and law courts, civil and criminal. Exasperated by his unfilial contumacy, Jaggo Bai executed a gift deed of her Stridhan properties excluding him scrupulously from her bounty. Later, she executed a document of a testamentary nature disinheriting him. These instruments were on persuasion cancelled but Beni Chand did not mend his ways. On October 26, 1961 when the impugned will was executed by Jaggo Bai, a litigation was still pending between the mother and son, and just 3 or 4 days before the execution of the will, the eighty-year old Jaggo Bai had to appear in the court. In this background, the fact that Jaggo Bai did not give any part of her properties to Beni Chand cannot be described as unnatural. Add to that the stark fact that the testatrix while disinheriting Beni Chand, bequeathed the entire property to his wife, Kamla Kunwar, the children born of her and to the progeny born of Beni Chands first wife Chameli Bai. Jaggo Bai never reconciled herself to Beni Chands third marriage with Ved Kumari and she excluded that branch from the bequest.

4. It is alleged that Dwijendra Nigam, an advocate, conspired with Jaggo Bais predeceased daughters son Ratan Lal to forge the will. But from the long and varied cross-examination of Nigam it is difficult to discover any reason why he should do so. He received no benefit under the will and had no interest either in seeing that the progeny born of Beni Chands first two wives shoul