In Brief
Two women claimed to be the widow of a deceased man, and their respective children claimed to be his legitimate heirs. A civil suit was filed seeking declarations of legal wedlock and heirship. The High Court ruled that such disputes fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of Family Courts under the Family Courts Act, 1984, and set aside the civil court's decree. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal, holding that this was a pure civil/succession dispute, not a family dispute. Since the parties did not seek to preserve a marriage but rather to establish competing inheritance rights based on evidence, the civil court had jurisdiction and the special family court procedure was inapplicable.
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