KA RIVERRETTA DIENGDOH Vs. KA TRIALLY SARA RYMBAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal under Section 299 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 (in short the 1925 Act), is directed against the judgment and order dated 22.09.2008 passed by the learned Judge, District Council Court, Shillong, in Probate Misc. Case No.1/2000, rejecting the application filed by the appellant for probate of the Will executed by the appellant's father.

(2.) The appellant filed an application seeking probate of a Will executed by her father on 06.02.1999, in the Court of learned Judge, District Council Court, Shillong, which was registered and numbered as Probate Misc. Case NO.1/2000, contending inter alia that by the said Will her father bequeathed the property belonging to him in her favour, in presence of the witnesses and when he was in the disposition state of mind. The said proceeding was contested by the respondents by filing joint written objection stating inter alia that the Will was obtained by the petitioner by fraud and misrepresentation of facts. It has also been pleaded that the testator did not have any right whatsoever to execute the Will as the property sought to be bequeathed is an ancestral property of Rymbai clan of Saitsohpen descended from the womb of late Ka Bei Rymbai and not the self acquired property of the testator and as such he does not have the right to bequeath the property by means of a Will. It has also been contended that late H.C. Rymbai, the father of the appellant who was merely managing and looking after the property on behalf of the Rymbai clan being the surviving elder uncle, has converted the patta in his name fraudulently without the consent of Rymbai clan, thereby converting the ancestral property as his own, which is absolutely illegal and against the Khasi custom of inheritance.

(3.) On the basis of the pleadings, the Court has framed the following issues:-