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Ram @ Ramdas Sheshrao Neharkar vs Sheshrao Baburao Neharkar and Others

Not available · 2024 INSC 498Decided 9 Jul 2024
Not available
Justice C.T. Ravikumar · Justice Rajesh Bindal

Background

The appellant filed a civil suit for partition and separate possession of property, claiming he was the son of the first respondent, born from the respondent's alleged marriage to a woman named Padminibai. The Trial Court and the First Appellate Court both accepted this claim and granted him a 1/5th share, but the Bombay High Court (Aurangabad Bench), hearing a second appeal, reversed both findings and dismissed the suit entirely, leading the appellant to approach the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the High Court's reversal, finding that the appellant had relied only on oral evidence to prove the alleged marriage and never produced Padminibai, the one witness who could have directly established it, despite her being available. It also noted the suit was filed 16-17 years after the appellant attained majority without any earlier claim against the respondent, and that Padminibai had remarried without any evidence of a divorce from the alleged first marriage, undermining the claim further. Since the appellant carried a heavy burden to prove paternity and marriage once these facts were disputed, and failed to discharge it, the Court held the lower courts' findings were rightly overturned as perverse, and dismissed the appeal.

Lesson Learnt

In property and inheritance disputes turning on a disputed marriage or paternity claim, the person asserting that relationship bears a heavy burden of proof, and unexplained, prolonged delay in asserting the claim along with failure to produce the most direct available witness can be fatal to the case, even if lower courts initially ruled in the claimant's favour.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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