LexRANI PURNIMA DEVI AND ANOTHER versus KUMAR KHAGENDRA NARAYAN DEV AND ANOTHER
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, ,\ .. 3 $.C.R. . SUPREME COURT REPORTS RANI PURNIMA DEVI AND ANOTHER v. KUMAR KHAGENDRA NARAYAN DEV AND ANOTHER 195 (K. N. WANCHOO, K. c. DAS GUPTA,.J. c. SHAH and RAGHUBAR DAYAL, JJ.) . Will-Proof-Suspicious circumstances surrounding execu· tion-Regislration of will, if dispels all suspicions. One K filed an application for the grant of letters of administration with the will attached. This will gave the entire property to K, a distant relation of the testator, subject to K maintaining the testator's widow and sister; other relation:, including the testator's daughter were completely left out. There were other suspicious circumstances surrounding the will viz., that the testator's signatures were not his usual signatures and were not in the same ink as the rest of the will and that the testator used t.o sign blank papers for use in his cases in court and used to send them to his lawyer throngh his servants. The will was later registered without the testator appearing before the sub-registrar and the sub.registrar only sending his clerk to the residence of the testator for the purpose. Out of 16 persons who signed the will as attesting witnesses only. 4 were produced to prove the will. The trial court held that the will was duly executed and attested and ordered the issue of letters of administration with the will annexed to K. On appeal the High Court affirmed the order of the trial court holding that the suspicious circumstances were dispelled by the registration of the will. Held, that the due execution and attestation of the will were not proved. In view of the suspicious circumstances it was the duty of the propounder of the will to prove due execu· tion and attestation by satisfactory evidence which would lead the court to the conclusion that the suspicious circumstance• had been dispelled. This he had failed to do. The four attest- ing witnesses produced were interested and unreliable; none of the independent witnesses who had signed the will were pro· duced. The mere fact that the will was registered was not by itself sufficient to dispel the suspicions without scrutiny of the evidence of registration. Registration would dispel the doubt as to the genuineness of the will only if it was made in such a manner that it was brought home to the testator that the docu· ment of which he was admitting execution was a will disposing of his property and the testator thereafter admitted its execu• tipn and signed in token thereof. In the present case, the regis- tration was done in a perfunctory manner and the evidence aid not establish that the testator !mew that the document the ' 1961 Auguai 2S. 196 SUPREME COuRT REPORTS [1962] 1961 execution of which he admitted ~efore the_ sub-registrar's clerk Rani-Pu-rn-ima Dei:i \vaS hii \vilt '.The \vitriesses pioduced to pr0ve registration, even .· ... : -·-.v. if they are treated as_ attesting \vifnesses, failed to prove due Kumar Khag~ndra - execution and· atte~tation o~ the \Vilt Na;ayan n,. H. Vetlatachala Iyengar v. ·,B. N: Thimmaf1mma, ( 1959) \ • Supp. I S. C.R. 426; applied .. · ·CrVIL A~PELLATE. JumimICT!()N: Civil Appeal No. 373/58; · . .. · Appeal by special leave from tpe judgment and decree dated February 2, 1954, of the Assam High Court in First Appeal No. 19.of 1950 (Probate) .. · . s: T. Desai and. Naunit Lal, for the appellants . . K. R .. Krishnaswami, foi: respondent No. I. .· . . 196L August 22 .. The judgment of the Court was delivered by · · IVnnch<>o J. . W ANCIIOO, J.-· This ·is an appeal 'by special leave against the judgment of tlie Assam High Court in a probate matter. The· main: appellant is Rani Purnima · Debi widow of Kumi1r Chandra ·· .Narayan Deb (hereinafter called the testator), .who ' 'died in June 1946. The second appe!lant is the .. testator's married daughter. An application ·was made by Kumar Khagendra Narayan Deb (here- inafter referred to as the respondent) before the District Delegate, Gauhati in August 1946 for grant of letters of administration with the will annexed. ·The case of the· respondent was that thetestator ·had executed a will on December 29, 1943, in favour .. -·of the respondent by which. the testator gave his . entire property. to tlie . respondent subject to the. ·respondent's maintaining the testator's widow and 'sister. Objections were filed on behalf of the .· .. appellants to the grant o.f letters of administration
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