GURDIP KAUR Vs. HARPREET KAUR AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CM No. 624-C-2015 For the reasons recorded in the application, the delay of 257 days in re-filing the appeal is condoned. RSA No. 2374 of 2015 (O&M) This is defendant's second appeal against the appellate decree dated 29th April, 2014 passed by the learned District Judge, Jalandhar allowing the appeal of minor Harpreet Kaur daughter of late Inderjit Singh son of Gurdarshan Singh, instituted through her mother and substituted by her maternal grandfather Darshan Singh against her grandmother and mother arrayed as defendants 1 and 2 in a suit for declaration that she along with other defendants are joint owners in possession of the suit land described in the plaint to the extent of 1/12th share each in three parcels of suit land comprising 220K-18M, 16K-0M and 13K-8M respectively falling in village Ambgarh, Tehsil and District Jalandhar, Punjab.

(2.) The suit was based on a challenge to the testamentary will dated 1st July, 1991 allegedly executed by her father Inderjit Singh. She pleaded that it was a forged and fabricated document which deprived her of her birth rights in suit land as minor, without orders of the guardian court. A permanent injunction was also sought restraining the grandmother from transferring, alienating or selling the suit property in any manner beyond her 1/12th share. During his lifetime, the plaintiff's father Inderjit Singh bequeathed his property in favour of his mother Gurdip Kaur. Inderjit Singh unfortunately died on 5th Sept., 1991 when she was minor. On his death, she was entitled to succeed to the suit property along with her mother Jaswinder Kaur and grandmother Gurdip Kaur in equal shares being Class I heirs under the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. It was alleged that after the death of Inderjit Singh, the defendant 1 in connivance with her sons manufactured a false will and testament dated 1st July, 1991 which was registered after the death of the testator on 27th Dec., 1991 and on the basis of this will, mutation No.1198 of the estate of Inderjit Singh was sanctioned in favour of the defendants.

(3.) The original lawsuit was filed by the minor daughter through her mother Jaswinder Kaur. After the death of Inderjit Singh, she got remarried which led to amendment of the suit in its cause title as one filed through her maternal grandfather. It was pleaded in the amended suit that Inderjit Singh received 1/4th share in the entire disputed land and on his death, she succeeded to his estate by natural succession entitling her to succeed to 1/12th share i.e. 1/4 x ⅓ = 1/12. The case set up was that since she was minor on the date of death of her father, the testamentary will was liable to be ignored since it broke the chain of natural succession and disinherited her from ancestral property in the hands of her late father.