Video article: End of mandatory Probate

 

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Advisory: The 2025 Transition from Mandatory to Permissive Probate

 

1. Executive Context: The Decoupling of Probate and Property Rights

The enactment of the Repealing and Amending Act 2025 marks the long-overdue dismantling of a colonial bottleneck that has constrained Indian succession for over a century. For decades, beneficiaries were caught in a paradoxical legal trap: they possessed the "key to the safe" (a valid Will) but were forbidden by law from opening it without completing an arduous and expensive "government course" known as probate. This mandatory gatekeeper model prioritized procedural compliance over inherent inheritance rights, creating an unnecessary barrier between heirs and their legacies.

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Whether court should grant succession certificate for operating bank locker after death of holder of locker?

Generally, banks are insisting on obtaining a succession certificate by the legal heirs in the case of lockers on the death of the holder of the locker. But succession certificate cannot be granted as the locker held by the deceased cannot be treated as a debt. The bank also is not expected to put the legal heirs in a difficult situation to spend more money in obtaining the succession certificate or some other certificate to safeguard their liability. Therefore, it is always desirable that the bank should adopt a procedure in obtaining a nomination at the time of opening of a locker by any person. In case of death of the person holding the locker, the bank may allow the nominee to operate the locker provided an inventory of the articles kept in the bank's safe custody and also obtain a guarantee from the said nominee to produce the articles in the event of any claim by any other person. If this simple procedure is implemented, it will save the parties from spending huge amounts by approaching the courts as courts have consistently held that no sucession certificate can be granted under section 370 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, to operate a locker as the locker cannot be treated as a debt.

Andhra High Court

Venugopal Loya And Ors. vs Vijayalakshmi Bung And Anr. on 16 March, 1990

Equivalent citations: 1991 71 CompCas 393 AP,.1991 (I)vol.15.All India Banking Law 

Bench: G R Rao

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Good legal article on succession certificate

A succession certificate, strictly speaking, does not effect adjudication of title of the deceased far less than that of the holder as regards the debts and securities covered thereunder. Yet, simply to afford protection to the parties paying the debts. The grant of succession certificate is conclusive against the debtor. A succession certificate is effect throughout the whole India as per section 380 of The Indian Succession Act,1925 (herein after referred as the Act). According to sections 381 and 386 of the Act, a succession certificate is conclusive as against the person/persons liable to whom full indemnity is afforded (make available) for payments made. But, despite the succession certificate is only conclusive of the representative title of the holder thereof as against the debtors, a suit of declaration will not lie that the holder of the certificate is not the legal representative of the deceased.

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