Supreme Court on 1st September had dismissed two Special Leave Petitions (“SLPs”) against probate of a will of Raja Bahadur Sardar Singh of Khetri, thereby affirming the validity of the ‘Khetri Trust’ created under the 1985 testament.
The State of Rajasthan, claimed that the estate had “escheated” to the State. Since the Raja died heirless, so the properties devolved on the State in accordance with Section 29 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956.
On the other hand, in another petition, two agnates claimed heirship rights and challenged the probate. However, they had earlier withdrawn both, their objections in the probate proceedings, and a civil suit against the will.
A Bench of Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma reasoned that the State of Rajasthan had no locus to claim that the estate had “escheated” to it under Section 29 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, because the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court had already granted probate of the will. This grant of Division Bench is a “pronouncement on the validity of the Will” of the testator (Raja Bahadur) by a competent court of law. So, the legatees under the Will, ‘Khetri Trust’ would succeed to the property. While dismissing the petition of State of Rajasthan, the Court clarified that Section 29 applies only if there is failure of heirs of a intestate Hindu. In the instant case, this is not a case of intestate succession but one of testamentary succession as probate of the Will has been granted by High Court.
The two-judge Bench also dismissed the petition of agnates and noted that “there is a total suppression of the fact” that earlier a civil case challenging the same will was withdrawn. This could alone be a ground of dismissing SLP u/a 136. Further, the withdrawal also means “no objection whatsoever for the grant of probate of the Will”.
Therefore, the petition was dismissed with costs of ₹1 lakh each of the two agnates, payable to the Supreme Court Mediation Centre.
Appearances:
For Petitioners: ASG S.V. Raju, AAG Shiv Mangal Sharma, AAG Padmesh Mishra, Adv Sonali Gaur, Adv Amogh Bansal, Adv Varun Maheshwari, AOR Nidhi Jaiswal, AOR Shovan Mishra, Sr. Adv Meenakshi Arora, Sr. Advocate Ashok Panigrahi, Sr. Adv. Puneet Jain, Sr. Adv. Mahendra Shah, Adv. Bipasa Tripathy, Adv. Shlok Luthra, Adv Aditi Vats, Adv. Akshit Gupta, Adv. Shreyansh Dhariwal, Adv Kamlesh Sharma, Adv Pragya Seth, Adv Nakul Bansal, Adv Nanakey Kalra
For Respondents: Sr. Adv Kapil Sibal, Sr. Adv Niranjan Reddy, Adv Mahesh Agarwal, Adv Anshuman Srivastava, Adv Rishabh Parikh, Adv Abhinabh Garg, Adv Niyati Kohli, Adv Uday Aditya Jetley Pocha, AOR C. Agrawala, AOR, Adv Prashant Mishra, Adv Saurabh Suman Sinha, Adv Aniket Sancheti, Adv Gautam Prabhakar, Adv Chitra Y Parande, Adv Aditya Dev Triguna, AOR Dhawesh Pahuja
