Compliance with the requirements of the Indian Succession Act, Section 372 is essential for the issuance of a succession certificate.

JUDGMENT :

Prayer: Civil Revision Petition is filed under Article 227 of Constitution of India to set aside the rejection of unnumbered S.C.O.P. dated 29.01.2021 on the file of the District Munsif cum Judicial Magistrate, Pallipattu.

1. The present Civil Revision Petition has been filed to set aside the rejection of unnumbered SCOP dated 29.01.2021 on the file of the District Munsif cum Judicial Magistrate, Pallipattu by raising various grounds.

2. The case of the petitioner is that he is the foster son of one Govindammal, wife of Rosaiah. The said Govindammal was working as a sweeper and gardener at Government Higher Secondary School (Boys) Pallipat. The petitioner was brought up by the said Govindammal and Rosaiah as their son from his childhood and the petitioner is the son of one Dhandugan, who is said Rosaiah's brother. The said Govindammal died on 27.10.2016 and her husband pre-deceased. After the death of the said Govindammal, the Tahsildar, Pallipat issued legal heir certificate to the petitioner as foster son after the enquiry in order to obtain all the benefits and job under the compassionate ground.

3. Further, the petitioner submits that he approached the District Educational Officer, Tiruvallur, to get benefits and the job under compassionate ground and produced relevant records with legal heir certificate of the above said deceased Govindammal and the said officer had sanctioned all the benefits to the petitioner, however, for the job under compassionate ground, the said officer orally requested to furnish the order of succession certificate from the court instead of legal heir certificate.

4. Hence the petitioner has filed a petition before the District Munsif Cum Judicial Magistrate, Pallipattu for issuance of succession certiciate under Section 372 of Indian Succession Certificate. Therafter, the said petition was returned seeking maintainability by the court below and upon perusal of the Judgment of this Court, the learned District Munsif Cum Judicial Magistrate, Pallipattu had not entertained the said petition, however, since the petitioner has not produced the details of debts and securities, which is mandatory for issuance of succession certificate, as per Section 372(1)(f) of the Indian Succession Act and due to quoting of wrong provisions of Law, the court below had rejected the petition. Further, the court below observed that “the petitioner had not produced any authorities so as to establish that this Court has jurisdiction to grant succession certificate in order to secure appointment on compassionate grounds”. Challenging the said order, the petitioner is before this Court.

5. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner had approached the District Educational Officer, Thiruvallur to get the benefits of the deceased Govindammal and it was also granted to him. Also, the petitioner has filed an application seeking succession certificate to get job under compassionate grounds, which was unnumbered. Subsequently, the same was returned for certain clarifications on the ground of jurisdiction issue and it was represented before the trial court, but the said petition was rejected without considering the judgments submitted by the him.

6. It is represented on behalf of the petitioner that the court below is having ample jurisdiction to deal with the petition and the trial court ought to have numbered the same and proceeded further with the case rather than rejecting the same. Therefore, the rejection order passed in unnumbered SCOP dated 29.01.2021 is illegal and liable to be setaside, he pleaded.

7. The learned counsel for the petitioner in support of his contention relied on the Judgment of this Court reported in CDJ 1971 MHC 316 [Vellaiammal Vs. Vellaichamy] and prayed that the District Munsif has got jurisdiction to issue the certificate. He also relied on the Judgment of High Court of Karnataka reported in CDJ 1977 Kar HC 084 [Ananthamathi Vs. Ratnavathi] wherein the relevant paragraphs ar