A Registered Will Alone Cannot Prove Authenticity, Rules Gujarat High Court

The High Court of Gujarat set aside a probate order in a long-running family property dispute between two brothers over a house in Ahmedabad, holding that merely registering a Will is not enough to prove its genuineness if there are suspicious circumstances surrounding its execution.

A will is a legal document that decides who will inherit a property after the death of its owner. The dispute in the present case concerns a Will which was allegedly made by the late Shri Ramchandra just a week before his death in July 1981.

One brother, Bhaskar Pednekar, claimed that his father legally wrote a Will prior to his death, giving him the entire ownership of their family house in Bapunagar. Consequently, based on the will, he approached the court seeking probate (it is a legal process performed by the court where a deceased person’s will is validated and ownership rights of the property are shifted to the beneficiary). When the court analysed the case, the will was initially accepted, and ownership rights of property in Bapunagar were transferred to Bhaskar Pednekar.

The other brother, Harishchandra Pednekar, being dissatisfied with the court’s decision, argued that the Will was fraudulent and was clearly illegally made just to take control over his father’s property. He explained that his father was suffering from Jaw and Tongue cancer and had also undergone treatment and surgery just before his death. Hence, he assured the court that at that point, his father was neither physically nor mentally fit to make such a major decision to make a Will.

When the court analysed the arguments served by Harishchandra Pednekar, it found several suspicious circumstances concerning the Will. The court noticed contradictions in the testimonies of witnesses about how and when the Will was signed. It was further noted that the Will mentioned only one property while ignoring all other assets and family members.

The High Court observed that simply proving signatures on a Will is not enough if serious doubts exist about its authenticity. The judge ruled that the person relying on the Will failed to remove these doubts convincingly. In conclusion, the High Court cancelled the earlier probate order and dismissed the probate proceedings.