A Christian's Will is still revoked by his marriage, and a Hindu's is not, and that difference survives Article 14

Justices Sathish Ninan and P. Krishna Kumar answered a suo motu reference by upholding Section 69 of the Indian Succession Act and rejecting the claim that it conflicts with Section 20.

Section 69 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 does something drastic and automatic: a Will is revoked by the testator's subsequent marriage. It does not apply to everyone. Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains are taken out of it by the Act's own schedule, so in practice it operates on Christians, Parsis and Jews. A suit in a Sub Court at Punalur threw up the question of whether a provision drawn that way can stand, and the trial court referred it. On 8 October 2026 a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court answered the reference by upholding Section 69.

How the question reached the High Court

The reference arose from an order of 12 February 2025 in an interlocutory application in a civil suit of 2016 before the Civil Court (Senior Division) at Punalur, Kollam. The trial court referred the matter under Section 113 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and the reference was numbered as a civil reference of 2025. It was heard along with a writ petition of 2017 and an original petition of 2026, with the Union of India and the State of Kerala on the array of respondents and a large body of counsel appearing, including on behalf of the Central Government and the Advocate General.

Two questions were framed. First, whether Section 69, being restrictive in its operation to Christians, Parsis and Jews, is violative of Part III of the Constitution. Second, whether Section 69 is in direct conflict with Section 20 of the same Act.

Why the provision looks the way it does

The Bench began with the statute's history, because the exclusion is not an accident of drafting. The 1925 Act is a consolidating statute, preceded by the Indian Succession Act, 1865, which did not apply to Hindus — a category that then included Jains and Sikhs — or to Muhammadans and Buddhists. Section 56 of the 1865 Act provided for automatic revocation on marriage in the same way the present Section 69 does.

When the testamentary provisions were later extended, the extension was selective. Schedule III to the 1925 Act makes Section 70 applicable to Hindus, but with the words relating to revocation by marriage omitted. The Court read that as a candid statement of legislative intention: the rule revoking a pre-existing Will on marriage was consciously not applied to Hindus.

The case that struck down Section 118, and why this is different

The petitioners' strongest material was John Vallamattom, where the Supreme Court struck down Section 118 of the same Act. That provision restricted bequests for religious or charitable use, with a requirement tied to a twelve-month period which the Court found had no relation to the purpose of a Will. The stipulations were held unreasonable and arbitrary, with no rationale behind them, and Section 118 was held to be discriminatory and violative of Article 14. The Kerala High Court had reached the same conclusion earlier in Preman v. Union of India.

The Bench drew a line between the two provisions. Section 118 totally curtailed the right of a testator to bequeath his property. Section 69 does not. The testator remains free to execute a bequest in respect of his property at any time, including after the marriage that revoked the earlier Will. There is no curtailment of the right itself, only a consequence attached to a change in the testator's circumstances. The Bench also noted that in John Vallamattom two of the three judges rejected the argument that the section offended Article 15.

On Article 14 the Court worked through the settled framework — the twin tests of intelligible differentia and rational nexus, and the propositions restated in Special Courts Bill, 1978, In re and applied since — beginning from the presumption in favour of the constitutionality of an enactment and the burden on the person attacking it.

Arguments for abolition, and why they did not decide the case

A substantial part of the hearing was devoted to material suggesting the rule itself is outdated. The Law Commission in the United Kingdom has proposed abolishing the rule that marriage or civil partnership revokes a Will, on the footing that automatic revocation is contrary to testamentary freedom, is unlikely to reflect what people intend or expect, sits awkwardly with the law's decision-specific approach to capacity, and that abolition would protect vulnerable people against an insidious form of financial abuse. That body also considered and rejected the halfway house of letting testators opt out in the Will itself, reasoning that people do not anticipate being the victims of financial abuse.

Closer to home, the Law Commission of India in its 110th Report had suggested saving Wills made in contemplation of marriage as an exception to automatic revocation under Section 69. Parliament has not acted on it.

The Bench recorded all of this and then set it aside as beside the point before it. It was concerned with the constitutionality of Section 69, and considerations of that kind are not reasons to strike the section down as violative of Part III. The challenge on that ground was negatived.

Section 20 and the argument from conflict

The second question turned on Section 20(1), under which no person shall by marriage acquire any interest in the property of the person whom he or she marries, or become incapable of doing any act in respect of his or her own property which he or she could have done if unmarried. The argument was that Section 69 does precisely what Section 20(1) forbids, by attaching a property consequence to marriage.

The Court held the two provisions are in no way conflicting or contradictory. Section 69 does not create any interest in property as a consequence of the marriage, and it does not restrict the spouse's power of disposal. Its only effect is that a disposition made before the marriage stands revoked, and that if the testator does not otherwise deal with his assets they devolve on the new family on his death. For that new family, who would be his legal heirs, the position is no more than a spes successionis. The challenge on this ground also failed.

Order

The questions referred were answered accordingly: Section 69 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 is not violative of Part III of the Constitution, and is not in conflict with Section 20 of the Act. The original petition, which challenged the correctness of the trial court's order of reference under Section 113 of the Code read with Order 46, was left undecided; with the challenge to Section 69 already answered, the Court held that a decision on that question would be academic. The civil reference, the writ petition and the original petition were ordered accordingly.