Article 14 has no application to dispositions under Will: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that in cases of execution of a will, there is no place for the Courts to see whether the distribution made by the testator was fair and equitable to all of his children [Swarnlatha and ors v. Kalavathy and ors].A bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian held that the principles governing Article 14 of the Constitution of India does not apply to dispositions under a will and the testators are not required to make fair and equitable distribution of their properties to all of their children."In the matter of appreciating the genuineness of execution of a will, there is no place for the Court to see whether the distribution made by the testator was fair and equitable to all of his children. The Court does not apply Article 14 to dispositions under a will," the Court ruled.The exclusion of one of the natural heirs from the bequest, cannot by itself be a ground to hold that there are suspicious circumstances, the Bench added..The Court does not apply Article 14 to dispositions under a will.Supreme Court .By way of background, a couple, Mannar Reddiar and Adhilakshmiammal, had two sons VM Chandrasekaran and VM Sivakumar and a daughter by name Kalavathy.Both the mother and father in their wills bequeathed their properties to their sons and not the daughter in the ground that she had been provided sufficiently during the time of her wedding.The eldest son VM Chandrasekaran died subsequently in October, 1999, leaving behind him surviving, his wife Swarnalatha and two sons by name C Karthikeyan and C Rishikesan, who were the appellants before the top court.The dispute arose when the daughter Kalavathy and the surviving son VM Sivakumar (one of the testators) filed a suit for partition before the District Munsiff Court, Poonamallee. Upon coming to know of the same, the appellants, who are the wife and sons of the eldest son VM Chandrasekaran filed a petition in probate before the Principal District Judge, Vellore, under Sections 270, 276 and 289 of the Indian Succession Act for the grant of probate of the wills of Mannar Reddiar and Adhilakshmiammal. The petition was hotly contested by the daughter and other son of the testators (respondents before Supreme Court). However, by a judgment dated June 7, 2010, the District Court granted probate of both the wills.The respondents filed an appeal under Section 384 of the Act before the Madras High Court which was allowed on the ground that there were suspicious circumstances surrounding the execution of both the wills.This led to the appeal before the Supreme Court..The claim of the appellants before the Probate Court was that the parents executed their last will and testament, in a sound and disposing state of mind and that those wills were executed in the manner prescribed by law. To prove the same, the appellants examined attestors to the will.The respondents contested the probate proceedings on the ground that their parents never executed any will and that the elder son VM Chandrasekaran played a fraud by taking signatures of the mother on blank papers and fabricating the same into a will and that in any case the testators had no right to dispose of the properties by way of a will..The Supreme Court held that none of the circumstances which the High Court set out to rule in favour of respondents created any suspicion regarding the execution of the wills."The law relating to suspicious circumstances surrounding the execution of a Will is already well-settled and it needs no reiteration....Cases in which a suspicion is created are essentially those where either the signature of the testator is disputed or the mental capacity of the testator is questioned," the Court said.The High Court proceeded to invent reasons to justify a conclusion that seems to have preceded the line of reasoning, the apex court said."The High Court made a mountain out of a molehill, by reading too much into the lack of knowledge on the part of appellant No.1 about the time of registration of Exhibit P-2 (Will) and the minor contradictions between her statement as PW-1 and the statements of PWs 4 and 5. The adverse inference sought to be drawn by the High Court about the failure of the testator Mannar Reddiar to ensure the presence of the daughter and the second daughter-inlaw at the time of execution of Exhibit P-2, has no basis in law," the Supreme Court stated,.The Court, therefore, allowed the appeal and set aside the judgment of the High Court..Advocate V Prabhakar appeared for the appellants. Senior Advocate Jayanth Muthraj represented the respondents. .[Read Judgment]