If a Will is surrounded by suspicious circumstances, mere examination of attesting witnesses is not enough proof of its genuineness, the Supreme Court has ruled.

A Bench of Justice Manoj Misra and Justice KV Viswanathan said that in such circumstances, the propounder has to discharge an additional burden of dispelling doubts and satisfying the judicial conscience that the document truly represents the free and informed wishes of the testator.

Reversing a Himachal Pradesh High Court verdict, the Bench on July 6 set aside the bequeathing of a property based on a 1974 Will executed by an illiterate agriculturist testator who could just thumb mark a document.

The top court concluded that the Will in question was disputed and the defendants failed to dispel legitimate doubts surrounding the Will.

The trial court and the first appellate court discarded the Will as there were several suspicious circumstances surrounding its execution. But the high court reversed the concurrent findings of the courts below and upheld the Will. The high court held that when attestation of the Will was duly proved by the attesting witness, its execution would stand proved and being a registered document, the will cannot be discarded.

While deciding an appeal filed by one Sardari Lal, the Supreme Court, however, didn’t endorse the high court’s views on the issue.

Allowing the Sardari Lal’s appeal, the top court said, “The impugned judgment and order of the High Court is set aside. The decree passed by the trial court as affirmed by the first appellate court is affirmed.”

Writing the judgment for the Bench, Justice Misra said, “Proof of Will is not just an exercise to prove the signature of the testator on the Will and its attestation in terms of Section 63 of the Succession Act; rather it is an exercise to satisfy the Court’s conscience that the testator had signed the Will with free will being aware of its contents and after understanding the nature and effect of the dispositions in the Will.”

The top court said, “Where there are suspicious circumstances regarding the execution of the Will, the propounder must explain those circumstances and dispel all reasonable doubts regarding its execution. Judicial pronouncements have left the phrase ‘suspicious circumstances’ open-ended so as to encompass any circumstance which creates doubt about the Will being expression of the free will of the testator, though it would not include a figment of imagination or fantasy of a doubting mind.”

It noted that “Such doubt may arise from a shaky or doubtful signature of the testator; a feeble or uncertain mind of the testator; an unfair disposition of property; an unjust exclusion of the legal heirs, particularly the dependents; active or leading part played by the beneficiary in making of the Will et cetera.”