CHITARANJAN NAROTTAMDAS NEGANDHI Vs. HEMKALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Plaintiff seeks probate of a Will dated 24th May 1973 left by his mother, Bhanumati Narottamdas Chapsi ("Bhanumati"). Bhanumati's husband was one Narottamdas Negandhi, but it appears that she did not take his surname. It is not disputed that Bhanumati, born in 1919, was about 54 years old when she made the Will in question, or that she lived for 19 years thereafter until her death at the age of 73 on 14th May 1992. Narottamdas died before she, on 24th July 1979. He was one of the two Executors named in her Will; the Plaintiff is the other. The Plaintiff is, thus, the sole surviving Executor of Bhanumati's Will.

(2.) Bhanumati and Narottamdas had six children: Pratapsingh, born in 1936; Yaswant, the 2nd Defendant, born in 1941; Indumati, the 3rd Defendant's mother, born in 1943; Hemkala, born in 1948, the 1st Defendant; Chittaranjan, the Plaintiff, born in 1950; and Kirtikumar born in 1952. Of these six children, Pratapsingh and Kirtikumar have not opposed this Petition. Hemkala, Yaswant and Indumati, all filed Caveats and supporting Affidavits and are now arrayed as Defendants Nos. 1, 2 and 3 respectively. For reasons that are now not material, Indumati (the 3rd Defendant's mother) withdrew her Caveat. For his part, Yaswant seems not to have participated in these proceedings; he led no evidence. The solitary opposition comes from the 1st Defendant, Chittaranjan's older sister, Hemkala.

(3.) The Will in question Exhibit "A" in evidence, p. 7 of the paper -book. is a typed document prepared with some degree of formality by M/s. Tyabji Dayabhai, an old and reputed firm of Solicitors. The Will has four typed pages. There is a docket at the reverse. There are no markings on pages 1, 2 and 3. I note this because there has been some level of argument that there are portions of the Will that are demonstrably erroneous to Bhanumati's knowledge. These ought to have been corrected before execution; the absence of corrections is, the Defendants submit, itself a sufficiently suspicious circumstance to warrant a dismissal of the Petition. Four pages of the Will are typed front and reverse. Page