Aunt’s Registered Will to Nephew’s Son Stands as Gujarat HC Rejects Nephew’s Fraud Challenge

The plaintiff, a nephew of Laliben, sued to have declared sham, bogus and fraudulent a registered Will by which Laliben, who died without children and whose husband predeceased her, bequeathed property to the defendant, the son of another nephew.

The trial court dismissed the suit, finding the Will proved; the first appellate court affirmed that decision.

The plaintiff appealed under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, alleging that the concurrent findings were perverse and that suspicious circumstances had not been properly assessed.

The defendant relied on the registered Will and the evidence of an attesting witness.

Section 100 CPC confines a second appeal to cases involving a substantial question of law; the High Court may not reassess concurrent factual findings merely because another view of the evidence is possible, and interference is warranted where findings are perverse, unsupported by evidence, based on inadmissible evidence, or contrary to mandatory law

The Court also relied on Hemalatha (D) by LRs v. Tukaram (D) by LRs, 2026 (0) AIR (SC) 615, for the proposition that registration lends a document a strong presumption of validity and genuineness

Under Parvathi Nairthi (Dead) v. Laxmi Nairthy (Dead) through LRs, 2026 INSC 521, exclusion of natural heirs alone does not invalidate a Will; suspicion must arise from circumstances that are abnormal or otherwise affect the Will’s genuineness or due execution

The High Court found no basis to disturb the concurrent findings in second appeal.

The Will was registered, an attesting witness testified to its execution, and the person who identified Laliben before the Registrar was also examined; the Court found no apparent perversity or gross irregularity in the lower courts’ acceptance of that evidence.

The plaintiff produced no evidence showing that Laliben had not executed the Will and did not establish reasonable suspicious circumstances.

The fact that the beneficiary was a nephew, like the plaintiff, did not itself create such suspicion.

Applying the limits of Section 100 CPC, the Court concluded that the appeal disclosed no substantial question of law.

The connected civil application for stay was disposed of as no longer surviving.