In a significant ruling affecting family property disputes and probate jurisprudence, the Delhi High Court has upheld the validity of an unregistered Will executed in 1989 by late Smt. Sheelawati Grover, thereby granting exclusive inheritance rights over a Model Town property to her son, Surinder Kumar Grover, the appellant. The Court simultaneously set aside the Single Judge’s 2018 decision that had dismissed the probate petition and ordered partition in favour of the other legal heirs.
The Division Bench, comprising Justice Anil Kshetrapal and Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar, held that the Will—scribed in Hindi on plain paper—stood duly proved under Sections 63 of the Indian Succession Act and 68 of the Evidence Act. The Court emphasised that attesting witnesses had consistently affirmed the Testatrix’s voluntary execution, and their testimony remained unshaken despite extensive cross-examination.
Rejecting all nine “suspicious circumstances” listed by the Single Judge, the Bench clarified that courts cannot introduce suspicions suo motu without such issues being raised in pleadings or put to witnesses during evidence. Importantly, it held that the presence of two signatures, the multi-folded condition of the Will, the absence of photographs of the birthday event where it was executed, or the Testatrix’s limited education, did not undermine its genuineness. The Bench noted that even the Testatrix’s husband had later withdrawn his own probate petition relating to an earlier Will and expressly accepted the 10 May 1989 Will as the Testatrix’s last testament.
The Court further observed that a mother is legally entitled to bequeath property to one child over others, particularly where she records justifiable reasons—in this case, the beneficiary’s weaker financial circumstances compared to his siblings. With no evidence of coercion or fabrication, the Bench ruled that the Will reflected the Testatrix’s true, final and free intention.
Consequently, the Court granted Letters of Administration to the appellant and dismissed the partition suit filed by the other children, bringing a 25-year-long family litigation to a close. The judgment reiterates that a duly proved Will cannot be invalidated based on conjectures, and that objectors carry the burden to substantiate allegations of suspicious circumstances with concrete evidence.
Surinder Kumar Grover v. State & Others, 18-11-2025