UMA DEVI NAMBIAR Vs. T C SIDHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) When crave for materialistic possessions outweighs personal love and affection, the inevitable result is passing long times in the corridors of Courts and the case at hand is no exception. In a proceeding initiated under Sections 192 to 195 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 (for short the Act) validity and genuineness of a Will was decided by the District Court, Kozhikode and the Kerala High Court refused to interfere under Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (for short the Code), negativing appellants plea that such adjudication was not permissible in the said proceeding.

(3.) The background in which the litigation has reached this Court is essentially as follows : The petitioner No. 1 had initiated proceedings under Sections 192 to 195 of the Act, aggrieved by the action of the respondent in allegedly taking illegal possession of the petitioners palatial ancestral home situate in the heart of the city of Calicut on U.K. Sankunni Road (a Road named after the petitioners father Late Shri U. K. Sankunni). The said proceedings being under Part VII of the Act were summary in nature, confined only to the issue of possession of the ancestral family home and the two garages. It has been judicially recognized that in such proceedings where the issue is one of possession, the question of title cannot be gone into in detail. According to her, the respondent (Dr. T. C. Sidhan) propounded a forged Will in the said proceedings and sought adjudication of the same, to which the petitioner No. 1, objected to. In fact, petitioner No. 1 had filed a separate application (I.A. No. 2976 of 2000) objecting to the adjudication of the alleged Will since the District Court exercising summary powers had no jurisdiction to do so. The petitioner No. 1 reiterated her objections even at the time when the witnesses were produced by the respondent (Dr. T. C. Sidhan). Notwithstanding all these, the District Court proceeded to adjudicate on the genuineness of the Will and solely on that ground gave possession of the property to the respondent. The District Court justified this assumption of jurisdiction by citing consent of parties. This was, according to petitioners clearly incorrect and on the contrary the petitioner No. 1 had objected to the said course of action. Original respondent Dr. T. C. Sidhan has died in the meantime, his legal representatives have been impleaded.