[Indian Succession Act] Courts Within Kerala Have No Jurisdiction To Issue Probate Or Letter Of Administration Sans State's Authorisation: High Court

The Kerala High Court recently held that unless there is a notification by the State Government as mandated under Section 264(2) of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 no court in the State will have the jurisdiction to issue probate or letters of administration.

A single bench of Justice P Somarajan observed that for the State of Kerala no such notification has been issued under the Act thus far.

“So far no notification has been issued by the State Government under Section 264(2) of the Act. In the Rules framed by the High Court (Indian Succession Rules (Kerala) 1968), though provisions were made regarding issuance of probate and letters of administration, nothing was incorporated to the effect of notification as mandated under Section 264(2) of the Act. In fact, a notification under Section 264(2) of the Act has to be issued by the Government and in the absence of such notification, no jurisdiction can be exercised by the Courts within the State of Kerala for issuance of either probate or letters of administration.”

The Court relied on the Apex Court decision in Ravinder Nath Agarwal v. Yogender Nath Agarwal and Others (2021 SCC OnLine SC 86) to explain that under Section 264 (2) of the Act, Courts beyond the limits of the Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, cannot receive applications for probate or letters of administration, unless the State Government authorises the courts to do so via a notification in the Official Gazette. This is applicable when the deceased is a Hindu, Muhammadan, Buddhist, Sikh or Jain or an exempted person, but it does not apply to cases where Section 57 of the Act applies, the Court explained.

The Court was considering an appeal against the grant of letters of administration in favour of the plaintiff by a trial court.

The Court also observed that under Section 307 of the Act the extent of power that can be exercised by an executor can only be for the purpose of managing debts or securities of the deceased. In the absence of a necessity to manage such debts or securities of the deceased, there would be no scope for issuing either a probate or letters of administration, the Court noted.

In the case at hand the Court observed that there is no scope for managing the assets of the deceased and hence no requirement for issuing letters of administration. Accordingly, the Court set aside the letters of administration issued by the trial court.

Case Title: T.K.Natarajan V T.K.Raman Achari

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Ker) 233

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