Legal Reference Library

The Delhi High Court, in the case of Rampali vs The State Govt of NCT of Delhi, has reiterated that nomination is not a Will in law and in the absence of any Will, only legal heirs (as per the Hindu Succession Act) shall be entitled to inherit the property of the deceased. In the present case, an appeal was filed to revoke the trial court’s order of dismissal of Rampali’s (deceased’s sister) succession certificate. Justice Valmiki J Mehta noted that the trial court had rightly awarded the succession certificate to the husband and daughter of Kamla Devi (the deceased), who were her legal heirs according to the Hindu Succession Act. The revocation was prayed for on the grounds that Kamla Devi had not been residing with her husband and daughter for over 35 years and that Rampali was shown to be her nominee in her government employment records. The opinion of the trial court noting that the revocation was right in light of Section 15(1)(a) of the Hindu Succession Act, was upheld by t...

A division bench of the Bombay High Court  in Shakti Yezdani and Another. vs  Jayanand Jayant Salgaonkar and Others.,   has held that the right of succession overrides the rights of a nominee. The bench of Justices AS Oka and AA Sayed have held that the rights of the successors prevail over that of the nominee of a holder of shares or securities appointed under Section 109A of Companies Act, 1953. The division bench was hearing appeals arising out of an order passed by a single bench. By an order dated March 31, 2015 a single judge of the Bombay High Court held that in the case of Harsha Nitin Kokate v. The Saraswat Cooperative Bank Limited(Kokate case) the view taken by Roshan Dalvi J was per incuriam or bad in law. These appeals were placed before the division bench after the Chief Justice passed an administrative order directing the same. The primary dispute arises out of a suit regarding the administration of estate of late Jayant Shivram Salgaonkar who died in A...

In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court has ruled that a man is legally entitled to nominate his married daughter to own his cooperative society flat after his death, depriving his wife and only son. The West Bengal Cooperative Societies Rules, 1987, stipulate that the owner of a flat in a cooperative society can nominate his house in favour of a person "belonging to his family". Taking this rule as their defence, along with other provisions of the WB Cooperative Societies Act, 1983, Biswa Ranjan Sengupta's wife and son challenged the decision of the managing committee of Purbanchal Housing Estate, Salt Lake City, Kolkata, to transfer ownership of a flat to Indrani Wahi, Sengupta's married daughter. Based on the objection, the deputy registrar of Cooperative Societies declined to record Indrani's name as the successor of the flat originally allotted to Sengupta, who in his last days was living with her because of "ill-treatment" by his wife and s...

Bombay High Court: Declaring the judgment of Harsha Nitin Kokate v. The Saraswat Cooperative Bank Ltd, 2010 SCC OnLine Bom 615  to be per incuriam, a bench comprising of G.S. Patel, J has held that legal heirs and not the nominees will get the ownership rights of share certificates. The Court declared the earlier judgment to be per incuriam, which means it had been wrongly decided and does not have to be followed. In the Kokate judgment,the Court had mistakenly concluded that once a nomination is made, the securities in question automatically get transferred in the name of the nominee upon the death of the holder of the shares and not to the legal heirs. The Court had considered the provisions of Section 109A of the Companies Act, 1956, and Bye-Law 9.11 under the Depositories Act and held that they do not displace the law of succession. The Court also discussed the purpose of nomination under Section 39 of the Insurance Act and various Supreme Court cases where it has been laid d...