BALDEV SINGH Vs. OM PRAAKASH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PRESENT Regular Second Appeal was admitted on the following substantial questions of law on 25.4.2003: Whether both the Courts below have misread and mis -appreciated the oral and documentary evidence to come to the conclusion that the Will dated 16.4.1986 executed in favour of defendants by late Shri Atma Ram is a valid Will and is not shrouded with suspicious circumstances.

(2.) FACTUAL matrix that needs to be noticed for deciding the appeal is like this. Present appellants, hereinafter referred to as plaintiffs, filed a suit for declaration that they were owners in possession of 19 Bighas 5 Biswas land, described in the plaint, having inherited the same from their father Atma Ram, as per law of succession. They pleaded that they had come to know that respondents -defendants, who are nephews of their father Atma Ram, got the suit property mutated in their favour, on the basis of a Will purporting to have been executed by Atma Ram on 16.4.1986. It was alleged that Atma Ram was sick on the date of alleged execution of Will and because of that illness he was not in a fit state of mind to understand the nature of disposition made through the Will. Also, it was alleged that the Will was forged.

(3.) ISSUES , based on the pleadings of the parties were framed by the trial Court and the suit was dismissed, with the findings that the deceased had not been looked after by the plaintiffs, who were his son, wife and daughter and that the deceased used to live with the respondents and was maintained and taken care of by them and that was why he executed the Will, in respect of the suit property, in their favour.