JUDGMENT

G S Patel, J. - A. BACKGROUND

The Petition seeks probate to a Will dated 18th April 2006 (Compilation, Exhibit "P2", p. 8.) of one Pushpa Thakurdas Aswani ("the Testator"; "Pushpa"). She died in Mumbai on 4th May 2006 after two successive illnesses with a ten-day interval. Both required her hospitalization. The beneficiaries under the April 2006 Will are the children of Pushpa''s two brothers. The present Plaintif ("Prakash") is one of these. Pushpa herself was unmarried and had no lineal descendants.

2. The contest to the April 2006 Will, strangely in such cases, comes from an outsider to the family, one Mahesh Kisshinchand Aidasani ("Aidasani"). He claims Pushpa made an earlier Will dated 8th February 2006, i.e. just a few months before the April 2006 Will, and under it, appointed him the sole executor. (Compilation, Exhibit "D8", p. 279-284.) Both Wills are therefore said to have been made very shortly before Pushpa''s demise. Aidasani himself has filed Testamentary Petition No. 853 of 2008 for probate to the February 2006 Will. This is contested and is now numbered as Testamentary Suit No. 61 of 2009. It was filed some 22 months after Prakash filed the present Petition for probate of the April 2006 Will.

3. Aidasani claims that in the February 2006 Will, Pushpa left her estate largely to the Sadhu Vaswani Mission ("SVM"). This is a well-known charitable trust headquartered in Pune of the followers of Sadhu Thanwardas Lilaram Vaswani. The SVM''s non-sectarian spiritual head until his passing in 2018 was Jashan Pahlajrai Vaswani, better known as ''Dada'' Vaswani. Aidasani himself never held an ofcial position with the SVM. He challenges the April 2006 Will that Prakash propounds chiefy on the ground that it is a forgery and a fabrication. He claims it was ''got up'' only after Aidasani disclosed the February 2006 Will to Prakash and other members of Pushpa''s family. While there was initially some other opposition to the present Petition propounding the April 2006 Will, all caveats in opposition save Aidasani''s were withdrawn. His is the only surviving opposition.

4. Pushpa was a well-educated professional. For several years, she was a Professor of Hindi at the Lala Lajpatrai College in Mumbai. The family was large and, as we shall see, evidently of ample means. It once held a plot of land at 14th Road, Khar, Mumbai 400 052. On this, the family put up a construction, initially of ground and two upper foors. The Aswani family took up the entire second foor. The ground and first foors contained apartments. A society known as the Ish Kripa Cooperative Society came to be formed. Later, some time in 1974, the family constructed an additional foor. Pushpa lived on this newly-constructed third foor with her sister, Rupawati, also unmarried.

5. Pushpa was one of five children of one Thakurdas Aswani. She had three brothers, Sunderdas, Lekhraj and Chimanlal and a sister Rupawati. Pushpa, Rupawati and Chimanlal remained unmarried. Lekhraj had three children, two daughters and a son, Renu, Shubhra and Janak respectively. Sunderdas had five children, three daughters and two sons: Sushma, Shalini, Hema, Prakash (the Plaintif ) and Mahesh.

6. Rupawati and Pushpa lived jointly in the third foor apartment of the Khar property until the former''s death in 1997. Pushpa continued living there alone. The only access to this third foor was from some of the Aswani family apartments on the second foor, viz., Flat Nos. 9 and 10 occupied by Janak, Lekhraj''s son. This question of access, as we shall presently see, is sought to be deployed in arguments by Aidasani.

B. THE 18TH APRIL 2006 WILL

7. The executor named in the April 2006 Will is Pushpa''s nephew, Prakash, her brother Sunderdas''s son. Prakash fills many roles in this narrative: he participated in the preparation of the Will; he is its named executor; he was present at the time of its execution; he is a beneficiary under it (along with his siblings and paternal cousins); and he pro