Punjab-Haryana High Court
Col. Mohinder Singh vs Major Sowinder Singh Sidhu And Ors. on 7 August, 1995
Equivalent citations: (1996)112PLR365
JUDGMENT Harphul Singh Brar, J.
1. Charan Singh father of the plaintiff-defendant Nos. 1 to 3 and husband of defendant No. 4 was the owner of the suit land. Charan Singh died leaving behind the plaintiff and the defendants as his legal heirs. The plaintiff challenged the will executed by Charan Singh on 3.9.1980 in favour of defendants 1 to 3 as forged and claimed l/5th share in the suit land left over by Charan Singh through a suit for declaration that the will dated 3.9.1980 was a forged document and he was entitled to 1/5th share in the suit land.
2. The defendants appeared and contested the suit of the plaintiff. Defendant No. 1 filed separate written statement while defendant Nos. 2 to 4 filed separate joint written statement. Defendant No. 1 has set up the will executed by Charan Singh in favour of the defendant Nos. 1 to 3 on the ground that the relations of the plaintiff were strained with Charan Singh. Similar, was the written statement of defendant Nos. 2 to 4. They also maintained that the plaintiff was separate from his father and his relations were not cordial. In his replication, the plaintiff controverted the averments made in the written statement and reasserted the factual position given in the plaint.
3. The following issues were framed by the trial Court :-
(1) Whether a valid will on 3.9.1980 in favour of the defendants? O.P.D. (2) Whether the plaintiff is entitled to the declaration as alleged in the plaint? O.P.D. (3) Whether the suit is properly valued for the purpose of court fee and jurisdiction? O.P.P. (4) Relief.
4. Learned trial Court decided issued Nos. 1 and 2 against the plaintiff while issue No. 3 was decided in his favour. Consequently, suit of the plaintiff was dismissed with costs.
5. Appeal of the plaintiff was allowed by the Additional District Judge, Amritsar vide his judgment dated 15.4.1985. The Regular Second Appeal filed against that judgment was dismissed by the High Court and finally the Supreme Court set aside the judgment of the Appellate Curt as well as of the High Court and remanded the case to the First Appellate Court for fresh decision on the basis of the record before it. The First Appellate Court, after going through the record and hearing the learned conceal for the parties, dismissed the appeal of the plaintiff. Hence this Regular Second Appeal.
6. Learned counsel for the appellant has assailed the judgment of the courts below on the following grounds :-
(i) That Charan Singh who is alleged to have executed the will dated 3.9.1980 had died on 27.8.1980 and was not alive at the time of the execution of the will and the will as such is a forged document.
(ii) That the relations of Charan Singh with the plaintiff-appellant were co-ordinal as he had gifted some property to him exclusively vide gift deed dated 4.6.1972.
(iii) That the signatures of Charan Singh on the will do not tally with his signatures on the Bank accounts.
7. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondents has argued that Charan Singh was alive on the date of execution of the will, i.e. 3.9.1980. The will, according to the learned counsel, is registered and its execution has been proved. There is no suspicious circumstances surrounding the will. The variations of signatures when made at different times and after considerable is but natural.
8. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties, I do not find any infirmity or illegality in the concurrent findings reached by both the courts below. Both the parties had led oral and circumstantial evidence regarding the date of death of Charan Singh. There is no documentary proof like the death certificate regarding the death of Charan Singh. Nobody has seen Charan Singh dead and his dead-body has not yet been recovered. Both the courts below have discussed the evidence regarding the factum as to whether Charan Singh was alive on he date of execution of the will or not and have reached a conclusion that the plaintiff-appellant has not been able to prove that Charan Singh and was dead earlier to the execution of the will. Statements of P.W. 10 Fazal Masih, P.W. 11 Wassan Singh and P.W. 1 Kashmir Singh and the statement of plaintiff-appellant himself have rightly been held as contradictory and not reliable by both the courts below. Publication in the Tribune dated 13.9.1980 regarding the Bhog of Charan Singh on 14.5.1980 has not been proved. The police investigation of the complaint of the plaintiff-appellant has rightly been held to be irrelevant and the statements made through the police investigation have also rightly been held to be not reliable. Sanctioning of leave to Major Sowinder Singh from 6.9.1960 to 6.9.1980 by telegram also does not help the appellant to came to a conclusion that Charan Singh was dead on 3.9.1980.
9. The gift deed dated 4.6.1972 in favour of the plaintiff does not help him in improving his relations with Charan Singh to be cordial. The Gift Deed is of the year 1972 but it is proved from the subsequent evidence on record that his relations with his father became strained later on. It is evident from the statement of Charan Singh Ex. D-1, wherein he admitted that Mohinder Singh the plaintiff-appellant had threatened him to get a share in the land. Besides this Mohinder Singh, in his own statement as P.W. 9, admitted in the cross-examination that he had litigation with his brothers Kuldip Singh and Sarabjit Singh and in that litigation, his father Charan Singh appeared against him as a witness. He also stated that he appeared as a witness against him in the year 1975. Due to, the strained relations, there was every possibility of Charan Singh having disinherited the plaintiff-appellant from his property. Moreover, the property has been given by Charan Singh to his remaining 3 sons and a provision for his widow has also been made by him in the will.
10. The plaintiff-appellant has examined the document-expert as P.W. 14. He stated that the signatures on the will do not tally with the specimen signatures. But at the same time, he stated that the variations come when a person signs at different times and with the time-gap or age gap. The signatures which have been compared with the signatures of will were put by Charan Singh much before the execution of the will and as such natural variation was possible. Moreover, there is a positive evidence on the file of the attesting witnesses and that of scribe about the execution of the will which is a registered one. In these circumstances, the opinion of the hand-writing expert was rightly not considered reliable by the courts below and they had rightly relied in reaching that conclusion on the basis of a judgment of the Supreme Court in Chhat Ram v. State of Haryana A.I.R. 1970 S.C. 1090 in which it has been held that where there is positive evidence, it is not safe to rely on expert evidence.
11. Now coming to the will alleged to have been executed by Charan Singh in favour of the defendant-respondents. D.W.1 Jaswant Singh and D.W. 3 Rajinder Mohan Singh are the attesting witnesses of the will while D.W. 2 Vir Bhan, deed-writer is the scribe of the will. Jaswant Singh D.W. 1 has stated that the will was duly executed by Charan Singh during his life time. He has also deposed that the contents of the will were read over and explained to the executant, who accepted the same to the correct and then he put as signature on the will. He further stated that the will was than presented before the Sub-Registrar won also explained the contents to the executant Charan Singh and he signed the will before him after admitting its contents. Similar is the statement of other attesting witness Rajinder Mohan Singh who appeared as D.W. 3. The deed-writer Veer Bhan who appeared as D.W. 2 also stated that he was the scribe of the will Ex. D-1 and he further stated that the contents of the will were read over and explained to Charan Singh who admitted the same to be correct and then signed the same in the presence of the witnesses and the witnesses attested the will in his presence. He stated that he had entered the will in his register at serial No. 585 and this entry also bears the signatures of Charan Singh. Another important fact that relevant in connection with the execution of the will is that Jaswant Singh one of the attesting witnesses is the Sarpanch of the Gram Panchayat and is also closely related to the deceased Charan Singh. He stated in his statement as D.W. 1 that Charan Singh was the husband of his father's sister and he is thus a natural witness against whom no bias could be found against the one or the other party. The second attesting witness Rajinder Mohan Singh is also a responsible official and is a member of the Block Samiti as well as a member of the Gram Panchayat. He also appeared as a witness and no contradiction or discrepancy has been noticed in his statement. The will was registered before the Sub-Registrar. Registration of the will along with other relevant evidence of the attesting witnesses and the scribe of the will proves the due execution of the will by Charan Singh in favour of the respondents. Moreover, the plaintiffs appellant has not challenged the will on on the ground that the same was surrounded by suspicious circumstance:-: but he simply stated that the will was a forged one. There is not even an iota of evidence which could prove that the will was a forged one. The plaintiff-appellant has thus failed to show that Charan Singh was dead 3.9.1980 when the will was executed by hint. The plaintiff-appellant has also failed to show that his relationship with his father Charan Singh was cordial. Rather it is proved from the evidence on the file that he had strained relationship with is father Charan Singh. Charan Singh had even appeared against the plaintiff-appellant as a witness in court cases. The gift deed dated 4.6.1972 in his favour also does not help him as the relations of Charan Singh became strained afterwards and he changed his mind and executed the will in favour of defendant-respondents 1 to 3. No discrepancy, material contradiction or suspicious circumstances have been proved on the file against the execution of the will. The will is registered document and the same as been proved by the attesting witnesses as as well as by the deed-writer. No doubt is left after appreciating the evidence on the file that the will has been executed properly and in accordance with law.
12. I do not find any infirmity or illegality in the concurrent findings of facts reached by the courts below. The appeal is dismissed, however, without any order as to costs.