We often come across cases where one of the heirs of a person who died intestate complains that the other heirs are denying them their rightful share in the deceased’s property. The question that invariably crops up is whether they should apply for letters of administration with respect to the deceased’s estate or file a suit for partition.
The Delhi High Court was confronted with precisely this question in a recent case (titled Sarla Gupta vs The State & Ors and numbered TEST.CAS.15/2016) and answered it rather definitively after an extensive and neat survey of the judicial precedents on the subject.
The long and short of it is that an application for grant of letters of administration is hardly the most appropriate remedy in cases involving highly contentious legal and factual issues, including the issue of the respective shares of the various heirs of the deceased. In all such cases involving acrimony among heirs and involved legal and factual questions, the court would be fully justified in refusing to grant letters of administration in exercise of its discretion under section 218(2) read with section 298 of the Indian Succession Act.
It would, however, still be open to and avisable for a legal heir out to secure their respective share of the deceased’s estate to file a suit for partition.
The court relied on one of its previous rulings thus:
“In Shubhra Singhal Vs. State MANU/DE/4848/2013, finding the relationship between the petitioner, claiming to be one of the heirs, to be acrimonious and contentious with the others also admitted to be heirs, it was held (i) that no purpose would be served in keeping the proceedings for grant of Letters of Administration pending, trying it as a contentious suit and deciding whether the Letters of Administration should be granted to the petitioner as sought or not, when from the pleadings it was evident that the petitioner cannot be said to be an appropriate person fit for grant of Letters of Administration and a suit for partition being a more appropriate remedy for adjudication of the disputes raised; (ii) that the grant of Letters of Administration requires the grantee to whom grant is made, to collect the estate and to distribute the same amongst rightful claimants; where relationship is bitter, the petitioner cannot be expected to, as Administrator, fairly distribute the estate between all the claimants; (iii) issues as to the shares in the estate cannot also be decided appropriately in a Letters of Administration proceedings, when, if there is any merit in the claim of the petitioner, partition is the only remedy; and, (iv) where it is found that there is no need for administration and what is in fact sought is adjudication of a right in the estate and consequent partition of the estate, the Court is entitled, in exercise of discretion under Section 298 supra, to refuse the grant of Letters of Administration and to relegate the parties to the remedy of partition.”
An advocate with nigh on a decade’s worth of litigation experience and an insatiable appetite for knowledge, yours truly has been a regular in the Supreme Court and various other courts and fora in and around Delhi—as well as various High Courts around the country. He is a founding partner at The Law Syndicate.
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