Swami Shradanand vs Gauhar Taj Namazie and others. Regular First Appeal 148/2003 decided on 17 March 2017.
Relevant paragraphs: 11.Having regard to the aforesaid rival contentions, the prime question for consideration in the application is, “Whether the appellant has incurred disqualification to represent the estate of deceased Shakereh Khaleeli on account of he murdering her and thereby disentitled to prosecute the appeal?”
13. There is no dispute that, from the Session’s Court till the Supreme Court, all the Courts have held that the appellant, in a calculated manner got access to Shakereh Khaleeli to grab her properties, gained her trust and married her…..administered Shakereh Khaleeli the high doze sedatives laced tea, when she fell fast asleep, stuffed her into that wooden box and buried that box in the pit got dug by him and leveled the land, thus killed her when she was just forty.
Cases relied on: Girimallappa Channappa Somsagar vs Kenchava Sane Yellappa Hosmani (1921 Indian Cases Vol.LXIL, 294), Kenchavva Kom Sanyellapap Hosmani and another vs Girimallappa Channappa Somsagar (AIR 1924 Privy Council 209), Saroja Chandrasekar vs The Union of India Writ Petition 19942/2002 decided on 15 July 2015, Vellikannu vs. R.Singaperumal and another reported in 2005 (6) SCC 622, Vedanayaga Mudaliar v. Vedammal (ILR (1904) 27 Mad 591), Gangu vs. Chandrabhagabai (1908) 32 Bom. 275, K.Stanumurthiayya & Ors. v. K.Ramappa & Ors., AIR (29), 1942 Madras 277, Nakchhed Singh & Ors. vs. Bijai Bahadur Singh & Anr., AIR 1953 All. 759, Mata Badal Singh & Ors. vs. Bijay Bahadur Singh & Ors., AIR 1956 All. 707, Minoti vs. Sushil Mohansingh Malik & Anr., AIR 1982 Bom. 68.
24. In this case also, merely because there is no provision in the Indian Succession Act to disqualify the murderer to the estate of his own victim, it does not bar the Courts from disqualifying him from inheritance.
27. Having regard to the aforesaid facts and circumstances and judgments, even in the absence of specific provision in Indian Succession Act, for disqualification of a murderer to succeed to the estate of his own victim, this Court draws authority from the Judgment of the Privy Council in Kenchavva Kom Sanyellapap Hosmani and another vs Girimallappa Channappa Somsagar (AIR 1924 Privy Council 209)…..appellant is not entitled to succeed to the estate of Shakereh Khaleeli, whom he murdered.
31. At the cost of repetition, it is to be noted that when Bombay High Court rendered judgment in Girimallappa Channappa Somsagar’s case referred to supra and Privy Council upheld that there was no law, much less the Hindu Succession Act disqualifying the murderer to succeed to his victim’s estate.
32. The case on hand is probably the first in the legal history, where a person having an eye on the property of a wealthy woman gains access to her hatching the plan to grab her property and marries her under the Special Marriage Act and murders her in a very gruesome manner to grab her properties. Hopefully such cases may drive the concerned to amend the Indian Succession Act incorporating a Section pari metria to Sections 25 and 27 of the Hindu Succession Act.
Compiled by S. Basavaraj, Advocate, Daksha Legal. raj@dakshalegal.com
Daksha Legal 