GANPAT Vs. SIRI CHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The solitary controversy raised in this regular second appeal relates to the genuineness or validity of the Will, Exhibit D-1, alleged to have been executed by Puran deceased in favour of Siri Chand, defendant-respondent, on December 21, 1974. Puran died at Palwal, district Faridabad, on February 17, 1975. The Will was concededly got registered by the defendant subsequent to his death on 8th April, 1975.

(2.) The case set up by the plaintiffs is that they are the sons and daughter of Puran's real brother, Hira Lal, and the will in question has been brought about by Siri Chand in order to defeat their legal rights as heirs to the deceased and with a view to grab his property. They also maintain that the defendant either managed to obtain the thumb impression of the deceased on a blank paper or misused such a paper to prepare the Will. As against this, the defendant pleaded that neither the plaintiffs are related to the deceased in any manner nor the genuineness of the Will can be doubted in any manner. He pleaded that the Will was executed in his favour on account of the services rendered by him to the deceased. He also claimed that a part of the property of the deceased located in village Meghpur was under mortgage with him for a sum of Rs. 1500/- and he stood surety for the deceased when he took a loan of Rs. 12000/- from the State Bank of India, Palwal Branch. As a result of the trial that followed in the light of the pleadings of the parties, while the trial Court decreed the suit of the plaintiffs the lower Appellate Court has dismissed the same by upsetting the findings recorded by the first Court.

(3.) It is not a matter of dispute that by now different Courts including the final one have laid down a number of tests to judge the nature and standard of evidence required to prove a Will, some of these being that but for the requirements of Section 63 of the Succession Act and Section 68 of the Evidence Act, a Will has to be proved like any other document to the satisfaction of a prudent mind. However, what makes a Will to differ from any other document is that it speaks from the death of the testator and this aspect introduces an element of solemnity in the decision of the question whether the document propounded is proved to be last Will and testament of the testator. Further, cases in which the execution of the Will is surrounded by suspicious circumstances, such as a shaky signature, a blurred thumb impression, a feeble mind, an unfair and unjust disposition of property and the propounder himself taking a leading part in the making of the Will under which he receives a substantial benefit, have to be dispelled by the propounder. These suspicions cannot be removed by his mere assertion that the Will bears the signatures of the testator or that the testator was in a sound and disposing state of mind. The presence of such suspicious circumstances makes the initial onus heavier on the propounder. Examined in the light of these tests, I find that the defendant-respondent has completely failed to establish the genuineness of the Will.