PRAKASH SUNDERDAS ASWANI Vs. MAHESH KISHINCHAND AIDASANI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petition seeks probate to a Will dated 18th April 2006 (Compilation, Exhibit "P2", p. 8.) of one Pushpa Thakurdas Aswani ("the Testator"; "Pushpa"). She died in Mumbai on 4th May 2006 after two successive illnesses with a ten-day interval. Both required her hospitalization. The beneficiaries under the April 2006 Will are the children of Pushpa's two brothers. The present Plaintif ("Prakash") is one of these. Pushpa herself was unmarried and had no lineal descendants.

(2.) The contest to the April 2006 Will, strangely in such cases, comes from an outsider to the family, one Mahesh Kisshinchand Aidasani ("Aidasani"). He claims Pushpa made an earlier Will dated 8th February 2006, i.e. just a few months before the April 2006 Will, and under it, appointed him the sole executor. (Compilation, Exhibit "D8", p. 279-284.) Both Wills are therefore said to have been made very shortly before Pushpa's demise. Aidasani himself has filed Testamentary Petition No. 853 of 2008 for probate to the February 2006 Will. This is contested and is now numbered as Testamentary Suit No. 61 of 2009. It was filed some 22 months after Prakash filed the present Petition for probate of the April 2006 Will.

(3.) Aidasani claims that in the February 2006 Will, Pushpa left her estate largely to the Sadhu Vaswani Mission ("SVM"). This is a well-known charitable trust headquartered in Pune of the followers of Sadhu Thanwardas Lilaram Vaswani. The SVM's non-sectarian spiritual head until his passing in 2018 was Jashan Pahlajrai Vaswani, better known as 'Dada' Vaswani. Aidasani himself never held an ofcial position with the SVM. He challenges the April 2006 Will that Prakash propounds chiefy on the ground that it is a forgery and a fabrication. He claims it was 'got up' only after Aidasani disclosed the February 2006 Will to Prakash and other members of Pushpa's family. While there was initially some other opposition to the present Petition propounding the April 2006 Will, all caveats in opposition save Aidasani's were withdrawn. His is the only surviving opposition.