1951 Supreme(Raj) 74
Rajasthan High Court
Wanchoo C.J. and Bapna, J.
Hukmichand - Appellant
Versus
Mst. Bhanwari - Respondents
D.B. Civil Miscellaneous First Appeal No. 2 of 1950
Decided On : July 13, 1951
Radha Mohan, for Appellant; Chand Mal, for Respondent
Headnote:Will — Probate, grant of— Courts not to decide whether testator had right to dispose of property.Practice — Costs—Probate proceedings—Objecting party wife of deceased—Costs were not awarded against her.
In proceedings relating to probate or to the grant of letters of administration with the will annexed, it is not the business of the court to take into consideration the property which may be devised by the testator or whether he had a right to dispose of his property under the will. All that the court has to decide in such cases is that the will had been executed by the testator and he had the capacity to understand the nature of the act, and that the act was not vitiated by fraud, or undue influence or defects of that nature. (Para 3)
2. Hukmi Chand, who is the brother of the deceased Lakshmi Chand, applied to the District Judge for grant of letters of administration with the will annexed, and produced a will stated to have been executed by Lakshmi Chand on the 15th of January, 1948. The will was a registered one, having been registered oh the 23rd of January, 1948. Lakshmi Chand died on the nth of February, 1948, and the petition was presented on the 31st of August, 1948. The petition was opposed by Mst. Bhanwari widow of Lakshmi Chand. The learned District Judge found that the will had been duly executed by Lakshmi Chand, and that Lakshmi Chand was not so ill on the date as not to be in full possession of his senses. He, however, refused to grant the letters of administration with the will annexed on the ground that the testator purported to dispose of the property which was a coparcenary property of Lakshmi Chand and his brother Hukmi Chand. He has also observed that the deceased made no provision for the maintenance of his widow in the will, which practically amounted to defeating her legal right to maintenance, which he had no authority to do. He also held that among Digamber Jains, a person could not devise his property in favour of his brother when he had a wife living. The petitioner, Hukmi Chand, has come in appeal.
3. It may be stated at once that in proceedings relating to probate or to the grant of letters of administration with the will annexed, it is not the business of the court to take into consideration the property which may be devised by the testator or whether he had a right to dispose of his property under the will. All that the court has to decide in such cases is that the will had been executed by the testator and he had the capacity to understand the I nature of the act, or that the act was not vitiated by fraud, or undue influence or defects of that nature. Reference may be made to Bai Parvatibai vs. Raghunath Lakshmaa (A.I.R. 1941 Bombay 60), and Bun Ditta Mal & others vs. Devi Datta Mal (A.I.R. 1931 Lahore 130). The learned counsel for the respondent accepted the proposition of law as stated above, and could not support the judgment of the lower Court 011 the basis it was given. He, however, contended that looking to the circumstances of this case and the disposition of the property made by the deceased leaving nothing for his widow, it should be held that the testator was not in a sound and disposing state of mind. He argued that it was most unnatural for a person to make no provision for a young wife when there was no quarrel or enmity between the husband and the wife. It was also stated that the testator had been suffering from tuberculosis for about five months, and he must have been in a very feeble state of mind, and could not realise the nature of his act. He referred to the evidence recorded in the case, and argued that the testator was so ill during the period when the will had been executed that he could not understand that he was disposing of all his property without leaving anything for his wife. It was also argued that under the will, Hukmi Chand took the entire benefit of the estate of Lakshmi Chand, and as he was the person who sent for the scribe and took a leading part in the execution and registration of the will, the burden of proof lay heavily upon him to show that the deceased fully understood the nature of the disposition.
4. We have gone through the entire evidence, and we agree with the lower Court that it has been fully proved that Lakshmi Chand had a sound and disposing state of mind at the time of the execution of the will, and that the will was brought into existence under the instructions and at the instance of Lakshmi Chand himself. A.W. 3, Arjun Raj, scribe, who is a licensed petition-writer, stated that he