Sanjib Banerjee, J. - (1.) The petition is for revocation of the grant of a probate filed by a person claiming to be the legatee in respect of the only immovable property of the testator under a previous Will. Probate of the previous Will has been granted by the Bombay High Court. The previous Will is said to be of June 14, 2006, of which probate was obtained on May 26, 2014. The later Will, which has been probated by this Court on February 3, 2014, is of July 24, 2009.
(2.) The principal ground urged by the petitioner, on the strength of a recent Supreme Court judgment, is that the mandatory pre-condition under Section 283(3) of the Succession Act, 1925 was not complied with prior to probate of the later Will being granted by this Court. The petitioner claims to be a resident of Mumbai and alleges that since the general citation was not published in Mumbai, where the immovable property of the testator is situate, the petitioner had no notice of the petition for grant of probate and could not object thereto prior to the grant. The petitioner claims to be the niece of the husband of a predeceased sister of the testator. The relevant uncle of the petitioner predeceased the testator. The petitioner, however, does not assert her tenuous relationship with the testator to claim the estate or the non-issuance of any special citation on the petitioner as a ground for revocation; though she maintains that she was liable to be cited as the executor and beneficiary under a previous Will.
(3.) On merits, the petitioner merely questions the signature of the testator in the later Will and claims the same to be forged. It is also the case of the petitioner that the testator died a bachelor and issueless and his three sisters predeceased him and all such sisters were issueless; and, as a consequence, the testator had no heirs under either class in the Schedule to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. The petitioner also asserts that the testator left no heirs either named under Class I to IV entry I to VIII of Schedule I or II (sic, there is only one Schedule) of the Hindu Succession Act nor any Agnates or Cognates. Indeed, the same averment was made by the petitioner in her petition for grant of probate before the Bombay High Court and paragraph 3 of the present petition is a substantial reproduction of paragraph 8 of this petitioner's petition for grant of probate in respect of the earlier Will (including the spelling mistakes).;