A court should not solely rely on its personal comparison of disputed handwriting with admitted handwriting to determine the genuineness of a will. Such a comparison should be made with caution and prudence, and the court should obtain expert opinion to assist in its determination.

R. K. PATRA, J.

( 1 ) SHOULD the Court, if goaded, arrogate to itself the role of an expert and compare the disputed writings of a person with other writings which are admitted or proved to be his writings and solely relying on such personal comparison form its own opinion and arrive at a conclusion on the question of identification of handwritings this is the moot question that arises for our consideration in this Letters Patent Appeal.

( 2 ) PLAINTIFF is the appellant and the defendant is the respondent (for the sake of convenience, they may be referred to as plaintiff and defendant in this judgment ). The parties are relations as will appear from the genealogical table set forth below :

( 3 ) PLAINTIFF's case is that the testatrix Amaji was the daughter of V. Kanheya. The latter had a sister called Amudu who was the grandmother of the plaintiff (i. e. father's mother ). The property mentioned in Schedule 'a' was purchased by Amudu and Amaji in the year 1940 and each of them had 8 annas interest in the said property. Schedule 'b' property exclusively belonged to Amaji. As Amaji had no children, she had lot of love and affection towards the plaintiff and her brother Bhaskar Rao (late husband of the defendant ). She (Amaji) on 17-2-1957 executed the will in question in favour of the plaintiff and her brother Bhaskar Rao in respect of her 8 annas interest of Schedule 'a' property and the entire interest of Schedule 'b' property. According to the terms of the will, the plaintiff and her brother Bhaskar Rao would get the said properties after the death of Amaji. It was further mentioned in the will that if any of the legatees died without leaving any son or daughter surviving on the death of such legatee, the property would go to other legatee. Bhaskar Rao died on 19-9-1974 leaving without any issue behind him. It is the claim of the plaintiff that under the terms of the will her brother having died without any issue, she alone is entitled to the entire property covered under the will after Amaji who had died on 11-8-1957. After the death of Bhaskar Rao the plaintiff wanted to record her name in respect of the properties but it could not be possible in absence of grant of letters of administration. In the premises stated above, she filed the application under Sections 276 and 278 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 (in brief the Succession Act) for grant of letters of administration in her favour in respect of the will in question.

( 4 ) V The defendant resisted the claim of the plaintiff contending inter alia that Amaji had not executed any will and the will in question is a forged and ante-dated document. It was further alleged that the signature purported in the will of Amaji was not her signature inasmuch as she was illiterate and had not known how to sign her name.

( 5 ) THE suit had once ended in dismissal on the basis of a finding that the will is not genuine being not executed and duly attested. On appeal being filed by the plaintiff against it, this Court in First Appeal No. 241 of 1977 set aside the judgment and remitted the matter with a direction to the learned trial Judge to give opportunity to the plaintiff to get the disputed signature in the will examined by a handwriting expert with the admitted signature of Amaji in Ext. 2. After the matter went back to the trial court on remand, the plaintiff got the signature compared by the handwriting expert who was examined as P. W. 5. On the basis of the evidence, the learned trial Judge came to hold that the will in question was duly executed and attested and in view of the admitted position that the husband of the defendant was one of the legatees died issueless, the plaintiff alone is entitled to the letters of administration and accordingly, allowed the application. Against the said judgment and decree, the defendant preferred First Appeal No. 381 of 1981 and a learned single Judge of this Court has reversed then holding that the will in question is not genuine. The