The Indian Succession Act confers exclusive jurisdiction on the Probate Court to grant probate and adjudicate disputes related to Wills, including their validity and genuineness. Civil Courts are barred from deciding the validity of Wills and taking cognizance of suits that challenge the validity of Wills.

( 1 ) WHETHER such an issue can be struck and decided by a Civil Court that Will "a" is the last Will of the testator and Will "b" is not?

( 2 ) ACCORDING to me, that is the crucial question arising for decision in this case and that view, I had taken when I heard this matter on 31-7-1991. Finally, counsel were heard on 8-8-1991, but on his prayer being allowed in that regard, appellants' counsel Shri Mishra filed the written arguments on 18-8-1991. Those are also taken into consideration in deciding finally this appeal.

( 3 ) IT may be, however, noted that on 8-5-1991, an interim order was passed in this matter. Respondent's counsel, Shri N. K. Jain, gave an undertaking that money lying in deposit in Sabalgarh Post Office, whose corpus, according to plaintiffs/appellants, was of the order of Rs. 75,000/-, shall not be withdrawn by the respondent without this Court's prior permission. Another undertaking was given that account shall be maintained of the rent realised from the suit property and that shall be filed in Court in this matter. Those were accepted.

( 4 ) BY the impugned order dated 20-7-1990, trial Court has rejected applications made by the plaintiffs/appellants under Order XXXIX, Rules 1 and 2 and Order XL, Rule 1, C. P. C. Temporary injunction was prayed in respect of realisation from tenants of rents in respect of the suit shops as also in respect of the deposit in deceased Raghuvir Das's name in Sabalgarh Post Office in Savings account. In a nutshell, the case of the plaintiffs/appellants is that deceased Raghuvir Das had executed a Will on 19-4-1979 in favour of defendant/respondent Balakdas which, he later revoked by the Will executed on 30-9-1988 in their favour. Accordingly, they became owners of the entire suit property of deceased Raghuvir Das and the defendant/ respondent having no right, title or interest therein, cannot continue to enjoy the same in an unauthorised manner to their detriment, on the basis of an invalid Will. According to them, the said defendant was an outsider to the family of deceased Raghuvir Das, who was their uncle and he had got the property also by Will in 1953 from his brother Sewadas who, in turn, had got it also under a Will in 1940 from his uncle Bankatdas who was plaintiffs' father's uncle. In my view, despite the cumbersome description of relationship, claimed by the plaintiffs with deceased Raghuvir Das, the plain and simple question is which of the two Wills executed by deceased Raghuvir Dayal is genuine and valid. Plaintiffs' case is not that deceased Raghuvir Das had no power of disposition of the property or that he had no title to the property, On the other hand, they claimed his property by way not of intestate succession, but by testamentary succession. Because, Balakdas had admittedly renounced the world; and he had acquired the property after he became "mahatma".

( 5 ) EVIDENTLY, the moot question, according to me, is if the trial Court was justified in reaching the tentative conclusion about validity and genuineness of Will dated 30-9-1988. Indeed, on the basis of that finding, the trial Court took the view that plaintiffs failed to establish their prima facie case to go to trial, while such an exercise, the provisions of O. VII, R. 11 (d), C. P. C. interdicted. It was apparently, in my view, a case for the plaint to be returned because on the statement made by the plaintiffs in the plaint, the jurisdiction of the Civil Court to decide the contest between two Wills of the same testator in respect of the same property was impliedly barred. That question, in my view, could be decided validly and legitimately only by the special forum of the Probate Court under the Indian Succession Act, 1925, for short, the 'act'.

( 6 ) APPELLANTS' counsel, Shri Mishra, protested that in this appeal, the question above referred cannot be, and need not be, examined. He relied on Khushro v. N. A. Guzder, AIR 1970 SC 1468, but I have failed to comprehend counsel's demur.