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Supreme Court of India 2020-04-24 dismissed

Shivakumar & Ors vs Sharanabasappa & Ors

Bench: 3 — <UNKNOWN>

In Brief

A dispute arose over the validity of a registered Will under which the defendant claimed ownership of certain properties. The Trial Court accepted the Will as genuine, relying on its registration and examination of the attesting witness. The High Court, scrutinizing the document's physical features, identified multiple unnatural characteristics: use of different paper sheets, irregular placement of the testator's signatures far from typed text, and evidence of different pens used for signatures. These factors led the High Court to conclude the Will was not genuine. The Supreme Court upheld the High Court's decision, holding that registration alone does not guarantee authenticity and that suspicious physical characteristics justified the finding that the testator did not actually sign the document. The appeal was dismissed.

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Succession Law Wills Document Authenticity Evidence Civil Procedure

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