# The Supreme Court Struck Down One Will and Upheld Another Within Seven Weeks. The Line Between Them Matters. **In May 2026 the Supreme Court upheld a will that cut out a man's wife and children. In July 2026 it struck down a will that cut out a widow. Both turned on one question: whether the suspicious circumstances were real. For an NRI who inherits, or contests, a will from abroad, that question decides who owns the flat.** Two benches, two wills that each disinherited the immediate family, two opposite results. Read together they draw the clearest line the Court has drawn this year on when a will holds and when it falls. ## What the two rulings said In **Sardari Lal v. Bishan Dass** (2026 INSC 669, decided 7 July 2026, Justices Manoj Misra and K.V. Viswanathan), an illiterate agriculturist died without children. His widow was his sole Class I heir. A registered will then surfaced that handed the property to distant relatives and cut her out. The Court called that "unnatural" and said it "raised suspicion." It pointed to uninitialed cuttings on the registration page, incorrect recitals, and a heavy burden on the people propounding the will that they never discharged. Registration, the bench held, did not cure the doubts. It struck the will and restored the widow's heir's ownership. Seven weeks earlier, in **Parvathi Nairthi v. Laxmi Nairthy** (2026 INSC 521, decided 22 May 2026, Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Vijay Bishnoi), the Court went the other way. A chartered accountant left his agricultural and ancestral property to his younger sister and cut out his wife and children. The family challenged the will, which was unregistered. The Court upheld it. Non-registration, it said, is no ground to doubt a will, and "mere exclusion of the natural heirs from the property of the testator, by itself, cannot be construed as a suspicious circumstance." Suspicion, the bench held, must be "real, germane and valid," not "the fantasy of the doubting mind." ## The line between the two The same fact sits on the surface of both cases: family cut out of a will. The result split on evidence, not on the exclusion. In Sardari Lal the defects were concrete and went unexplained. The testator could not read. The will carried uninitialed alterations that touched the presenter's identity. The recitals were wrong. The people relying on the will could not account for any of it. In Parvathi Nairthi there was no such defect. The testator was a literate professional, the will read as a coherent document, and the challenge rested on the bare fact of exclusion, which is not enough. Three points fall out of the pair, and each one cuts against common belief: - **Registering a will does not make it bulletproof.** Sardari Lal's will was registered and still fell. - **An unregistered will is not worthless.** Parvathi Nairthi's will was unregistered and stood. Both benches said registration is not required and its absence proves nothing. - **Cutting out the natural heir is not, by itself, fatal.** It becomes fatal when it sits next to real, unexplained defects in how the will was made. ## Why this matters for an NRI NRIs inherit at a distance, and a will is where most inheritance fights start. Two situations recur. You are the beneficiary of a will and a relative contests it. Or you are the natural heir written out by a will you doubt. Either way the courts weigh substance over the stamp on the cover. What tends to hold a will up is plain: a testator who understood the document, clean execution with attesting witnesses who can speak to it, and no unexplained cuttings or corrections. What pulls one down is the reverse, and registration does not patch the gap. We cover the mechanics of inheriting from abroad in [inheriting property in India as an NRI](/guides/inheriting-property-india-nri), the paperwork of proving you are the heir in [succession certificate versus legal heir certificate](/guides/succession-vs-legal-heir-certificate-nri), and what happens when co-heirs cannot agree in [the co-heir deadlock guide](/guides/co-heir-deadlock-inherited-property-nri). This is a report on two judgments, not advice on your will. Wills turn on their own facts, and these two rulings are the proof. ## FAQ **Does a will have to be registered in India to be valid?** No. Both the May and July 2026 Supreme Court benches held that registration is not required and that non-registration is no ground to doubt a will. A registered will can still be struck down, and an unregistered one can still stand. **Can you leave property away from your spouse and children?** For self-acquired property, yes. In Parvathi Nairthi the Court held that excluding natural heirs is not by itself a suspicious circumstance. It turns into a problem only when other real, unexplained defects surround the will. **What gets a will struck down?** Real and unexplained suspicious circumstances. In Sardari Lal the Court pointed to an illiterate testator, uninitialed cuttings on the will, and incorrect recitals that the people relying on the will could not explain. Registration did not save it. *66 MG Road newsdesk* ## Sources - Verdictum, "Disposition In Favour Of Distant Relatives While Disinheriting Widow Unnatural And Raises Suspicion Over Will: Supreme Court" (Sardari Lal v. Bishan Dass, 2026 INSC 669, 7 July 2026): [https://www.verdictum.in/supreme-court/2026-insc-669-sardari-lal-v-bishan-dass-1617279](https://www.verdictum.in/supreme-court/2026-insc-669-sardari-lal-v-bishan-dass-1617279) - LiveLaw, "2026 LiveLaw (SC) 655 | Sardari Lal v. Bishan Dass & Ors.": [https://www.livelaw.in/sc-judgments/2026-livelaw-sc-655-sardari-lal-v-bishan-dass-ors-540194](https://www.livelaw.in/sc-judgments/2026-livelaw-sc-655-sardari-lal-v-bishan-dass-ors-540194) - Verdictum, "Exclusion Of Wife & Children Not A Suspicious Circumstance By Itself: Supreme Court Upholds Unregistered Will In Favour Of Testator's Sister" (Parvathi Nairthi v. Laxmi Nairthy, 2026 INSC 521, 22 May 2026): [https://www.verdictum.in/supreme-court/parvathi-nairthi-dead-ors-v-laxmi-nairthy-dead-through-lrs-ors-2026-insc-521-1614485](https://www.verdictum.in/supreme-court/parvathi-nairthi-dead-ors-v-laxmi-nairthy-dead-through-lrs-ors-2026-insc-521-1614485) - Legal Bites, "Is a Will Suspicious When It Benefits Distant Relatives and Excludes the Widow?" (Sardari Lal v. Bishan Dass analysis): [https://www.legalbites.in/hindu-law/is-a-will-suspicious-when-it-benefits-distant-relatives-and-excludes-the-widow-1327523](https://www.legalbites.in/hindu-law/is-a-will-suspicious-when-it-benefits-distant-relatives-and-excludes-the-widow-1327523) ## Compare and cost - [The NRI Property Management Companies in India: A Comparison You Can Check](/guides/best-nri-property-management-companies-india) - [What NRI Property Management Costs in India: The Four Models and What Hides in Each](/guides/nri-property-management-cost-india) - [NoBroker NRI Services Review: What the Pages Promise and What They Leave Out](/guides/nobroker-nri-services-review) --- Source: [https://66mgroad.com/guides/nri-supreme-court-will-validity-suspicious-circumstances-jul-2026](https://66mgroad.com/guides/nri-supreme-court-will-validity-suspicious-circumstances-jul-2026) ยท 66 MG Road. Full LLM brief: https://66mgroad.com/llms.txt