Madras High Court: a registered Will is not presumed valid, it must still be proved like any other Will

In a decades-old family partition suit from Madurai, the Madras High Court's Madurai Bench held that a registered Will enjoys no special presumption of validity and must still be proved under Section 63 of the Indian Succession Act and Section 68 of the Indian Evidence Act. The suit concerned properties of one V.K. Kesavaram, who died intestate in 1975, leaving his children to partition his estate. One disputed item had passed from a son to their mother by a settlement deed, and the defendants claimed the mother later willed it to her daughters. The trial court accepted this Will and denied the plaintiffs a share in that item.

On appeal, Justice P. Vadamalai held that while a registered document generally carries a presumption of due execution, a Will is different: it must be proved by evidence that the testator signed it and that at least one attesting witness confirms its execution, regardless of registration. Since the defendants examined no attesting witness or scribe, and the plaintiffs showed the mother was bedridden and unconscious for years before her death, the Will was not proved. The Court restored that item to the pool available for partition and, noting one sibling had since died unmarried, enlarged every heir's share from 1/11th to 1/10th in the affected items.