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1991 Supreme(Del) 695

High Court Of Delhi
RAJRANI SEHGAL - Appellant
Versus
PARSHOTTAM LAL - Respondent
First Appeal Order 107 of 1986
Decided On : 12/18/1991

Advocates Appeared:
M.L.Lonial, S.L.CHAUDHARY, V.K.Makhija

Headnote:Property – will - Section 276 of Succession Act, 1925 – whether will genuine and absolute in intention – while construing will Court to read and keep in mind whole of document - intentions of testator to be determined – once Court satisfied that testator intended to give all property to named legatee all subsequent restrictions would be void –objections of appellant dismissed in view of non accessibility of original will – held, impugned will genuine.

Santosh Duggal, J.

( 1 ) THE appellant Smt. Rajrani Sehgal is one of the daughters of deceased Shri Godar Mal, respondent No. 1, Dr. Parshottam Lal, being the son. The said Shri Godar Mal died on 14th February, 1980 and shortly thereafter a petition for grant of probate/letter of administration under the provisions of section 276/ 278 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 (for short the Act ) was filed by respondent No. l on the basis of a will, dated 9th September, 1974 alleged to have been executed by his late father, bequeathing all his moveable and immoveable properties to him. All the daughters of the deceased including the present appellant were impleaded as respondents; two of whom, namely appellant Smt. Rajrani and Smt. Shakuntla, respondent No. 5 in the petition filed objections to the grant of probate/ letter of administration in favour Dr. Parshottam Lal, The other two daughters Smt. Shanti Devi and Savitri Devi and legal heirs of a pre-deceased daughter named Smt. Bimla Devi did not, however, file any objections. The petition was allowed after rejection of all the objections by order dated 3rd March, 1986, and it is this order which is subject matter of the present appeal.

( 2 ) THE appellant contends that the will suffered from a legal infirmity inasmuch as it offended the rule against perpetuity as contemplated by section 114 of the Act. The objection is elaborated by reference to the terms of the will, (Ex. P. 1) whereby as per appellant s contentions, the testator had created perpetuity in his family and had tended to limit the absolute enjoyment of the estate for an indefinite period because the impugned will imposed restrictions on the legatee, namely, his son against alienation, sale or transfer and thereafter on son s sons, son s sons s sons and so on. It is contended that this is tantamount to creation of successive life estates, which was prohibited by law, and was not permissible under the Hindu Law of Inheritance and thus the entire bequest by this will was void and inoperative, and the learned District Judge erred in holding the objections in this respect to be not tenable, and that it was a case where bequest in favour of the son was absolute, with certain restrictions imposed, which being repugnant to the main purpose of the will, were liable to be ignored.

( 3 ) THE appellant has also reiterated other objections taken in her objections filed in the probate proceedings, namely, as to the execution of the will having not been proved and the will propounded by respondent No. l not being a genuine will of the deceased father and not in any case the last one, and that there were certain suspicious circumstances surrounding the will, which had not been explained by the propounder,and for that reason also, the order of grant of letter of administration was liable to be set aside.

( 4 ) ANOTHER objection set forth is as to the petition itself not having been filed in the manner required by law inasmuch as the will in original though in existence was not annexed with the petition and no case for filing a copy of the certified copy of the Registrar s office was made out.

( 5 ) DURING hearing, Mr. Lonial appearing for the appellant pressed all these contentions. In respect to the first objection, namely, the will being void and inoperative for reason of offending the rule against perpetuity, the learned counsel argued that a bare reading of the will Ex. PI makes manifest the intention of the testator to restrict the bequest in favour of the son, only to a life estate, expressing a wish that "the said son shall not sell or mortgage or transfer or pawn the immoveable properties during his life time". A similar desire was expressed in respect to the grandsons and daughter-in-law or sons or daughters of the grandsons. He contended that it was a case where the deceased unmistakably intended each one of the heir in succession to enjoy only life estate and that this was nothing but creation of successive life estates o





















































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