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Sardari Lal v. Bishan Dass and Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 669Decided 6 Jul 2026
Civil Appeal No. 10990 of 2016
Justice Manoj Misra · Justice K.V. Viswanathan · Justice Shree Chandrashekhar

Background

Bhambo Devi (later substituted by appellant Sardari Lal) sued to be declared the sole owner of property left by her deceased husband, Chhajju Ram, an illiterate agriculturist who died intestate leaving her as his sole heir. The defendants (Bishan Dass and others, distant relatives) claimed Chhajju Ram had executed a registered will in 1974 in their favour, out of gratitude for services rendered, and that revenue records had been mutated accordingly. The Trial Court and First Appellate Court both rejected the will as suspicious and decreed in the widow's favour, but the High Court, in a second appeal, reversed and dismissed her suit, upholding the will.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that whether a will was validly executed is essentially a question of fact, and a High Court exercising second appeal jurisdiction under Section 100 of the CPC cannot re-open such findings unless the lower courts' reasoning was perverse or legally flawed. The Court found multiple genuine suspicious circumstances surrounding the will: the testator was an illiterate agriculturist who could only thumb-mark documents, the will disinherited his sole legal heir (his widow) entirely in favour of persons who were not close relatives, and it contained incorrect recitals about the legatees' relationship to the testator and about who provided him food and lodging. Given these unresolved doubts, the Court held the Trial Court and First Appellate Court were right to discard the will, and that the High Court had exceeded its jurisdiction by disturbing those factual findings. The appeal was allowed and the trial court's decree in the widow's favour was restored.

Lesson Learnt

A will that disinherits an obvious natural heir in favour of unrelated persons, especially one executed by an illiterate person and containing factual errors about the beneficiaries, invites close judicial scrutiny; and courts of fact, not second-appeal courts, are the proper forum to weigh such suspicious circumstances.

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

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