Elder sister revoked first Will favouring younger sister after property dispute; HC upheld the second Will giving the house to adopted daughter

A recent case before the Punjab and Haryana High Court showed how bitter a family property dispute can become. A younger sister and her husband allegedly went against the family to seize control of the elder sister’s house property after she removed her younger sister from the property's Will. The high court case is a stark reminder of how quickly blood relations can turn bitter when property is involved.

To give you more details about this high court case, this case involved two sisters fighting over a six-room house built on 79 square yards of land in Ludhiana, Punjab. This Ludhiana house property is owned by Mrs Harbhajan Kaur and she is a widow. She has a younger sister, Smt Kaur and a brother Mr Tarsem Singh (now deceased) who lived nearby. Since Mrs Harbhajan Kaur was childless, her brother used to come to her house and took care of her as and when she needed (since she was old) until the day he died.

The younger sister had married and had a son and a daughter. Everything was going fine in Mrs Harbhajan Kaur's life until one day she noticed something suspicious about her younger sister's intentions. Acting on this suspicion, Mrs Harbhajan Kaur decided to revoke her first Will and cut her younger sister from inheritance of this house.


On February 15, 2008, she decided to revoke her first Will, which had originally left the Ludhiana house to her younger sister after her demise.

However, for unknown reasons Mr Tarsem Singh (her brother) passed away in the last week of December 2009, leaving Mrs Harbhajan Kaur all alone in the house. After his death, she chose to adopt her younger sister’s daughter, as her own daughter.

Things took a drastic turn for the worst in January 2010, when Mrs Harbhajan Kaur had to go to Mayya Da Dera, Phillaur, for a function, leaving her house under lock and key. Utilising this opportunity, allegedly her younger sister and her husband entered her Ludhiana house property, grabbed it and have been living there ever since illegally.

Feeling aggrieved and allegedly denied access to her own house, Mrs Harbhajan Kaur filed a court case about five months after this incident. While the court case was ongoing, Mrs Harbhajan Kaur executed a second Will on March 15, 2013, under which she wrote that after her demise, the Ludhiana house would go to her adopted daughter.

The 2nd Will became her final Will as before the final verdict could be announced by the high court, Mrs Harbhajan Kaur died. On July 15, 2026, she won the case in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. However, this case is now not over, since Smt Sinha has filed an SLP in Supreme Court of India against this judgement. The Supreme Court's decision is pending.

Also read: More than 30-year-old Will fails in High Court: Why brothers lost claim to ancestral land

How did Mrs Harbhajan Kaur win the case in high court?

Jyoti Sinha, Partner at Khaitan & Co, said to ET Wealth Online: Mrs. Harbhajan Kaur succeeded because the Punjab and Haryana High Court treated the case as one of valid testamentary succession under Will rather than intestate succession.

Sinha says that the Punjab and Haryana High Court found that Mrs Harbhajan Kaur’s ownership of the property was supported by records, while Smt Kaur’s (younger sister) competing claim under an alleged agreement to sell had not been proved.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court also held that Mrs Harbhajan Kaur’s later registered Will (2nd and last Will) had been validly proved by an attesting witness. The Punjab and Haryana High Court also relied on a Supreme Court precedent (Mathew Oommen vs. Suseela Mathew), and accepted that if a witness is signing both as scribe and attesting witness it did not invalidate a Will.

Sinha says: "As a result of the high court judgement, the property passed to the adopted daughter under the Will, rather than under the succession rules applicable to a female Hindu dying intestate. However, Smt Kaur has since challenged the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s decision by filing a special leave petition before the Supreme Court and it remains to be seen if the Supreme Court agrees with this position."

Also read: Probate granted to Will but criminal court finds the Will to be forged: Affected party can apply for revocation of probate

What did Punjab and Haryana High Court say about scribe of Will

Justice Vikas Suri of Punjab and Haryana High Court heard this case. Scribe is someone who drafts or writes the Will.

Sinha from Khaitan & Co, law firm says that the Punjab and Haryana High Court drew a distinction between a “mere scribe” and a “scribe who is also an attesting witness”. A person who only drafts or writes a Will does not become an attesting witness merely because his signature appears on it.

Sinha says: "However, relying on the Supreme Court judgment in Mathew Oommen Vs Suseela Mathew, the court held that there is no legal bar on the same person acting as both scribe and attesting witness if the evidence shows that he signed with the intention to attest."

It is noteworthy that in this case an advocate (scribe) had signed the Will as both, the attesting witness and the scribe. Therefore, The Punjab and Haryana High Court held that he was not being treated as an attesting witness merely because he had drafted the Will, but as a genuine attesting witness who also happened to be the scribe.

Sinha says: "This legal position is expected to be examined by the Supreme Court in a pending special leave petition filed by Smt Kaur."

Also read: Think twice before picking a Will writer: How close relationships can complicate probate

The Punjab and Haryana High Court cited the Hon’ble Supreme Court decision dated January 3, 2006, rendered in Civil Appeal No.2034 of 2003, titled as Mathew Oommen vs. Suseela Mathew, reported in (2006) 1 SCC 519, where it was held that there is no legal requirement that says a scribe cannot be an attesting witness of a Will as well.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court clarified that a scribe does not automatically become an attesting witness merely because he/she wrote the Will, what matters is the intention to become a witness.

The high court said: “However, it is trite law that a scribe cannot be “treated” as an attesting witness to a Will. In the case at hand, the factual matrix is not that a scribe has been treated as an attesting witness. Rather, one of the attesting witnesses has also signed as a scribe.”

The case still goes on as Smt Kaur (younger sister) has filed an SLP in Supreme Court against the high court judgement.