SARALA SUNDARI DASSYA Vs. DINABANDHU ROY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal from the High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal which reversed the judgment of the District Judge at Pabna on an application by the respondents for the revocation of the probate of a will of an alleged testator Haralal Saha, which had been obtained by his widow, who is the appellant, in the year 1933.

(2.) THE circumstances were that Haralal Saha was a man of some age and had been very successful in his business, which was principally that of a moneylender. He owned immovable property in several districts in Bengal and in one district outside. He died in 1927 and, upon his death, there can be no doubt, that his three sons who survived him took possession of the properties. In some instances they had joined in a suit with their mother and were substituted for their father in a partition suit. THEy got a certificate of succession to enable them to sue on certain debts which were due, no doubt, on the moneylending business. THEy collected the rents of the immovable properties and they proceeded, both they and the widow, precisely as they would have proceeded if there had been an intestacy.

(3.) THE first question that arises is more or less a technical question as to whether or not the respondents had a locus standi so as to be in a position to apply for revocation of the probate. That depends on certain clauses in the Indian Succession Act, 1925. By Section 263. "THE grant of probate...may be revoked...for just cause." By the Explanation, "just cause shall be deemed to exist where"only three of them need be read (a) the proceedings to obtain the grant were defective in substance; or (b) the grant was obtained fraudulently by making a false suggestion, or by concealing, from the Court something material to the case; or (c) the grant was obtained by means of an untrue allegation of a fact essential in point of law to justify the grant, though such allegation was made in ignorance or inadvertently.