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V. Prabhakara v. Basavaraj K. (Dead) by LR. & Anr.

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 626Decided 7 Oct 2021
Civil Appeal Nos. 1376-1377 of 2010
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul · Justice M.M. Sundresh

Background

The appellant claimed a house under a registered Will executed in his favour in 1985 by his deceased maternal aunt. After her death, the occupant (his aunt's former brother-in-law) refused to vacate, relying instead on a later unregistered Will allegedly favouring the occupant's minor son. The trial court believed the registered Will and disbelieved the unregistered one, citing a smudged thumb impression and a stamp dated on Independence Day, among other anomalies, and decreed the suit for the appellant, but the High Court reversed this in a first appeal, citing "suspicious circumstances" around the registered Will.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court erred in entertaining suspicion about the registered Will's execution when there was no specific pleading challenging it, especially since the defendants' own case relied on a later Will that itself presupposed the registered Will's validity. Both courts below had already found the unregistered Will to be forged and fabricated. The Supreme Court restored the trial court's decree, holding that the High Court could not substitute unfounded suspicion for established facts when no genuine suspicious circumstance was pleaded or proved.

Lesson Learnt

A court should not invent suspicion about a document's validity when no party has specifically pleaded a challenge to it, especially where the opposing party's own case implicitly accepts that document.

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

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