Supreme Court restores widow's inheritance rights, flags scrutiny needed for suspicious wills

The Supreme Court has ruled in favour of a widow whose inheritance rights were denied based on a contested will made by her late husband, an illiterate farmer. A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and K.V. Viswanathan allowed the appeal in the case of Sardari Lal v. Bishan Dass & Ors. The court restored the concurrent findings of both the Trial Court and the First Appellate Court, which had earlier rejected the disputed will. The will in question had sought to transfer the farmer's estate to distant relatives while completely excluding his widow. The Supreme Court emphasised that registered wills appearing suspicious in nature must be subjected to careful judicial scrutiny before being accepted as valid.