When Marriage Revokes the Will: Section 69 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, the Hindu Exception, and the Test of Equality Under Articles 14 and 15
“Ambulatoria est voluntas defuncti usque ad vitae supremum exitum.” (A testator’s will is ambulatory until the last moment of life.)
Introduction
Section 69 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 provides that every will is revoked by the marriage of its maker. The rule bites on Christians, Parsis and Jews, but not on Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains, for whom the proviso to Section 57 declares that marriage shall not revoke a will. This article sets out the anatomy of the provision, the legislative architecture that produces the Hindu exception, the justifications that can be offered for it, and the constitutional questions under Articles 14 and 15. It rests on the statutory text and on decisions of the Supreme Court of India only. Its conclusion is that the section should survive equality review as it stands, that its closest judicial analogue, the invalidation of Section 118 of the same Act in John Vallamattom, is distinguishable in principle, but that the factual premise of the Hindu exception has weakened with time and the real remedy is legislative.
I. Why This Section Deserves a Second Look
A will, by its nature, speaks only at death. Until then it confers nothing on anyone, and its maker may alter or abandon it at will. The Act accordingly lists the ways in which an unprivileged will can be revoked: by another will or codicil, by a writing declaring an intention to revoke, or by burning, tearing or otherwise destroying it with that intention. Each of these is an act of the testator, directed at the instrument.
Section 69 is the one provision that revokes a will by operation of law, with no act directed at the instrument and no intention to revoke it. The testator need only marry. A Christian who made a will as a bachelor and then married, perhaps without thinking of the will at all, dies intestate. A Hindu in the identical position dies testate. The same event, the same instrument, the same family: two outcomes, separated only by the personal law of the testator.
That contrast raises three questions. What exactly does Section 69 do? Why does the Act deny it to Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains? And does the difference survive the guarantees of equality in Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution? This article answers them in that order.
A Word on Authorities
A word on authorities. The analysis uses the text of the Act and decisions of the Supreme Court. In preparing this article no Supreme Court decision squarely testing the constitutional validity of Section 69 was traced. The discussion therefore applies the Court’s settled equality jurisprudence to the section and measures it against the Court’s closest analogue, the invalidation of Section 118 of the same Act.
II. The Provision and Its Anatomy
“69. Revocation of will by testator’s marriage.—Every will shall be revoked by the marriage of the maker, except a will made in exercise of a power of appointment, when the property over which the power of appointment is exercised would not, in default of such appointment, pass to his or her executor or administrator, or to the person entitled in case of intestacy.”
The Explanation adds only that a person invested with power to determine the disposition of property he does not own is said to have power to appoint that property. Five features of the text matter in practice.
1. “Every Will”
The rule is categorical. It is not confined to wills in favour of any particular beneficiary, and it is not limited to unprivileged wills. A codicil forms part of the will it supplements, so revocation of the will carries the codicil with it (Section 2(b) of the Act; see Annexure).
2. “Shall Be Revoked”
The operative verb is mandatory and the effect is automatic. Section 69 creates no presumption that the testator may rebut and no ground on which a beneficiary may resist. Evidence that the testator intended the will to survive his marriage, however strong, is legally irrelevant unless the case falls within the statutory exception. The testator’s remedy lies in drafting, not in proof: he must make a fresh will after the marriage.
3. “The Marriage of the Maker”
The word “maker” is sex-neutral. A man’s marriage and a woman’s marriage have the same effect. The section does not distinguish a first marriage from a later one. Whether a purported marriage that is void in law can revoke a will is not settled by any Supreme Court authority traced for this article. On principle there is a respectable argument that it cannot, because a void marriage creates no marital status. The Court has held in Yamunabai Anantrao Adhav v. Anantrao Shivram Adhav, (1988) 1 SCC 530 that a Hindu marriage contracted in breach of Section 5(i) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 is void from inception. That decision, however, speaks to the status of such a marriage, not to Section 69, and the question should be treated as open.
4. Sequence: The Will Must Precede the Marriage
Only a will made before the marriage is revoked. A will made after the marriage is untouched by this section. The section also makes no exception for a will expressly made in contemplation of the marriage that follows. As the text stands, such a will is revoked by the very marriage it anticipated, a gap that the Law Commission of India identified and recommended closing (Part IX below).
5. The Power-of-Appointment Exception
A will made in exercise of a power of appointment is spared if the property subject to the power would not, in default of appointment, go to the donee’s own executor, administrator or intestate heirs. The logic is evident. The property belongs to the donor’s scheme, not to the donee’s estate. If the will were revoked, the property would pass to the default takers named by the donor, so revocation would defeat the donee’s exercise of the power without bringing the property back into the donee’s estate. Marriage changes the donee’s family but not the donor’s dispositive scheme, and the section gives way. Where the default takers are the donee’s own estate or heirs, the ordinary rule applies and the will is revoked.
6. What Follows Revocation
Once the will is revoked, the estate devolves under the intestacy rules applicable to the deceased, and the new spouse ordinarily takes a share. The new family’s position is a spes successionis (a mere expectation of succession), not a vested interest. The testator keeps full power to dispose of his property during his lifetime and to make a new will at any time. Section 69 operates on a prior testamentary act and leaves the capacity to make wills untouched. This point becomes decisive in Part VI.
Testator’s Personal Law
| Testator’s Personal Law | Governing Provisions | Effect of Subsequent Marriage on an Existing Will |
|---|---|---|
| Christian (and any person not within Sections 57–58) | Part VI of the Act applies in full; Section 69 | Will revoked, subject to the power-of-appointment exception |
| Parsi | Part VI applies; Section 69 | Will revoked, subject to the same exception |
| Jew | Part VI applies; Section 69 | Will revoked, subject to the same exception |
| Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain | Section 57 and Schedule III; proviso to Section 57; Section 70 as modified | Marriage does not revoke; revocation only by the other modes in Section 70 |
| Muslim | Part VI excluded by Section 58 | Section 69 inapplicable; testamentary succession governed by Muslim personal law |
| Persons marrying under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 | Sections 21 and 21-A of that Act read with Sections 57, 58 and 69 of the Succession Act | Depends on the parties’ personal law and the provisos to those sections; no Supreme Court authority traced. |
Table 1: Who is affected by Section 69.
III. Why Marriage? The Rationale of the Rule
The rule descends from English testamentary law through the Indian Wills Act of 1838 and the later Indian Succession Acts. Its premise is a presumption about human affairs. Marriage is the most consequential change in a person’s dependants, duties and priorities, so a will made before it probably no longer expresses what the testator would now want. The law treats the will as stale and gives the new family the benefit of the intestacy rules. The rule is protective in design, and its operation is a default, not a penalty.
The defence of the rule is strongest where marriage is a rare, formative, monogamous event, and weakest where it is not. Two of its features invite criticism even on its own terms. First, the presumption is irrebuttable: a testator who deliberately drew his will to survive his marriage cannot say so. Second, it is silent on the will made in contemplation of a particular marriage, where the presumption is at its weakest because the testator had the marriage in mind. English law, the source of the rule, later saved a will expressed to be made in contemplation of a marriage, and the Law Commission of India recommended a similar saving in its 110th Report. The Commission’s published recommendation on Section 69 centres on that saving. The saving has not been enacted.
IV. The Hindu Exception: Sections 57 and 58 and Schedule III
The Hindu exception is produced by the architecture of Part VI of the Act, not by any express carve-out within Section 69. Section 58 provides that Part VI does not apply to the testamentary succession of Muslims, and, save as Section 57 provides, does not apply to that of Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs or Jains. Section 57 then brings back selected provisions of Part VI, those set out in Schedule III and subject to the restrictions and modifications specified there, for three classes of wills made by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains: (a) wills made on or after 1 September 1870 within the territories then subject to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal or within the original civil jurisdiction of the Madras and Bombay High Courts; (b) such wills so far as they relate to immovable property in those territories; and (c) all wills made on or after 1 January 1927 not otherwise covered. Clause (c), added in 1926, has since made the regime nationwide, and the earlier clauses retain historical interest only. The section ends with a proviso that disposes of Section 69 in terms:
“Provided that marriage shall not revoke any such Will or codicil.”
Schedule III reinforces the proviso. It carries Section 70 into the Hindu regime with a modification: the words “than by marriage or” are omitted. A Hindu’s will therefore cannot be revoked by marriage. It can be revoked only by another will or codicil, by a writing declaring an intention to revoke it, or by destruction with that intention (confirm the rider’s wording against the Schedule; see Annexure).
Two observations follow. First, the Hindu exception is not isolated. The Act is built on a personal-law architecture throughout: it excludes Muslims from Part VI altogether, and it applies Hindu-specific modifications to the sections it does extend. Section 69 is one instance of a systemic design. Second, the Special Marriage Act, 1954 complicates the picture. Section 21 of that Act directs that succession to the property of persons married under it is governed by the Succession Act, subject to provisos for Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains (and Section 21-A deals with marriages where both parties belong to those communities). How those provisions interact with Sections 57 and 69 has produced High Court authority, but none from the Supreme Court has been traced. Practitioners advising a Hindu testator who marries under the 1954 Act should not assume the proviso to Section 57 protects the will.
V. Why the Distinction? Three Justifications, and What Each Is Worth
The Act does not explain the Hindu exception, so any justification is an inference from history and from the surrounding law. Three are available.
1. The Marriage-Pattern Justification
Section 69 presumes that marriage signals a break in the testator’s family circumstances. That presumption is intelligible when marriage is typically a single, monogamous event. Before 1955 Hindu law did not enforce monogamy, so a Hindu testator’s subsequent marriage might add to an existing household without displacing it, and marriage was a weaker signal of changed testamentary intention. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 changed that. Section 5(i) makes monogamy a condition of a valid Hindu marriage, and a marriage in breach of it is void (Yamunabai Anantrao Adhav, (1988) 1 SCC 530). The Supreme Court has described the 1955 Act as having codified Hindu marriage law and replaced the earlier traditional law (Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India, (1995) 3 SCC 635; reaffirmed in Lily Thomas v. Union of India, (2000) 6 SCC 224). This justification was therefore strong when the exception was enacted but has lost much of its force over seventy years.
2. The Maintenance Justification
A Hindu wife has a standing statutory claim to be maintained by her husband under Section 18 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956. A Christian or Parsi wife’s statutory alimony claim under the personal laws arises principally in matrimonial proceedings (the Divorce Act, 1869 for Christians; see Annexure). On this view, Hindu law already protects the wife during the marriage, so the revocation rule is needed less. The justification is weaker than it first appears. Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, now Section 144 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, gives every wife a maintenance remedy irrespective of religion, and the Supreme Court has held that provision to be secular in character (Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum, (1985) 2 SCC 556). The gap in protection between communities is therefore narrower than the justification supposes. A further difficulty is that maintenance is a claim against the husband during his life, whereas Section 69 concerns the disposal of his estate at death. The two do not map neatly.
3. The Personal-Law Pluralism Justification
The Constitution tolerates, and the legislature has maintained, a plural system of family and succession laws. The Supreme Court has repeatedly treated the reform of that system as a task for Parliament. In Ahmedabad Women Action Group v. Union of India, (1997) 3 SCC 573 a three-Judge Bench declined to rewrite personal laws in writ proceedings and treated the questions as matters of legislative policy. In Pannalal Bansilal Pitti v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (1996) 2 SCC 498 the Court rejected Article 14 and Article 15(1) challenges to a statute that regulated only Hindu religious endowments, accepting that reform of one community’s institutions may proceed on its own footing. In Sarla Mudgal the Court urged the State towards a uniform civil code under Article 44 but did not itself impose one. On this view the exception is the product of legislative gradualism, not of any decision that Hindu testators merit different treatment. This is an institutional justification, and its weakness is that it explains why a court may leave the distinction in place without showing that the distinction is substantively sound.
VI. Article 14: Equality Before the Law
A. The Governing Framework
Article 14 forbids class legislation but permits reasonable classification, which must rest on an intelligible differentia having a rational nexus with the object of the law. The principles were collected in State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar, AIR 1952 SC 75 and in Ram Krishna Dalmia v. Justice S.R. Tendolkar, AIR 1958 SC 538. Dalmia adds working rules that matter here. There is always a presumption in favour of the constitutionality of an enactment, and the burden is on the challenger. The legislature is presumed to understand the needs of its own people. The legislature is free to recognise degrees of harm and may confine its restrictions to the cases where the need is deemed clearest. The Court may take into account matters of common knowledge and the history of the times. These principles were restated in In re Special Courts Bill, 1978, (1979) 1 SCC 380.
Article 14 also has a second, substantive dimension. State action must not be arbitrary (Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978) 1 SCC 248). In Shayara Bano v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 1, Nariman J., writing for two Judges, held that legislation may be struck down under Article 14 where it is manifestly arbitrary, that is, done capriciously, irrationally or without adequate determining principle. The standard was cemented in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, (2018) 10 SCC 1. In the Electoral Bonds decision, Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India, 2024 INSC 113, the Court emphasised that plenary legislation enjoys greater immunity under this test than subordinate legislation. Shayara Bano is also relevant for a second reason: it treated a statute that gave effect to a personal-law practice as “law in force” open to Part III scrutiny. Section 69 is a statute, so Part III applies to it without difficulty.
B. Applying the Two-Part Test
Intelligible Differentia
The Act classifies by the testator’s personal law. Those within Part VI proper are subject to Section 69, and Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains, whose wills are governed through Schedule III, are not. Classification by religion is not self-validating, as Vallamattom shows below. But where the law in question is personal law, the classification follows a recognised and historically intelligible line, and the Court has accepted community-specific reform (Pannalal Bansilal Pitti).
Rational Nexus
The object is to protect a testator’s new family from the accidental survival of an obsolete will. The nexus between the object and the exclusion of Hindus depends on the first justification above, namely that Hindu marriage patterns and the surrounding Hindu-law obligations made the presumption less apt. That nexus was plausible when the exception was framed. Its present strength is the real question (see Part VI.D).
Under-Inclusion
A challenger may say that if protecting the new family is a legitimate object, the exception for Hindus defeats it, so the classification is under-inclusive. The Supreme Court has long held that under-inclusion alone is not fatal. A legislature may address a mischief in stages and may deal with one part of a problem at a time (State of Gujarat v. Shri Ambica Mills Ltd., (1974) 4 SCC 656, a Constitution Bench decision; and Dalmia, on degrees of harm).
The relief a challenger could obtain is also limited. A court cannot extend Section 69 to Hindus, which would be legislation. It could only strike the section down, removing a protective default from the communities it now serves.
C. The Closest Analogue: John Vallamattom
The strongest case against Section 69 is the decision that struck down another section of the same Act. In John Vallamattom v. Union of India, (2003) 6 SCC 611, the Court declared Section 118 ultra vires Article 14. Section 118 imposed restrictions on bequests for religious or charitable purposes, and it burdened Indian Christians only. The Court held that its purpose had lost all significance with the passage of time.
The decision shows that the Court will examine a pre-Constitution succession provision, that religion-specific burdens attract scrutiny, and that a provision whose original rationale has faded may fall. The table below shows why Section 69 is nevertheless different.
Section 118 and Section 69 Compared
| Feature | Section 118 (struck down) | Section 69 |
|---|---|---|
| Whom it burdened | Indian Christians only | All persons within Part VI (Christians, Parsis, Jews and others); Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains excluded by Section 57 |
| What it did to testamentary power | Restricted capacity: limited bequests for religious or charitable use, unless the will was made well before death and deposited as the Act required | Revokes a prior will; leaves capacity untouched, and the testator may make a new will at any time |
| Can the testator avoid its effect by a simple act? | Only by satisfying a substantive pre-condition on the bequest itself | Yes: execute a fresh will after the marriage |
| Object and its vitality | Held to have lost all significance with time | Protecting the new family from a stale will remains a live and legitimate object |
| Nature of the burden | A real restriction on what a testator could do | A rebuttable-by-drafting default that regulates the effect of an earlier act |
The central distinction is between curtailing a power and regulating the consequence of an earlier exercise of it. Section 118 took away something a testator would otherwise have been free to do. Section 69 takes nothing away; it ends a prior instrument on a defined event and leaves the testator free to re-make it. A court applying Vallamattom would first ask whether the section burdens the capacity to dispose of property. Section 69 does not.
D. The Time Problem
This is where a challenger would press hardest. A classification that was reasonable when made can cease to be reasonable. The Supreme Court has said so in terms: legislation that was rational at its inception may, through lapse of time or changed circumstances, become arbitrary and offend Article 14, and a court may strike it down in later litigation if the rationale of the classification has disappeared (Satyawati Sharma v. Union of India, (2008) 5 SCC 287; Motor General Traders v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (1984) 1 SCC 222). Vallamattom applied the same insight to a provision of the very Act under discussion.
Applied here, the argument runs as follows. The marriage-pattern justification for exempting Hindus rested on the permissibility of plural marriage under older Hindu law. After 1955 monogamy is the Hindu rule. If Hindu marriage now performs the same role in the testator’s life as Christian or Parsi marriage, the rationale for treating the two differently has largely gone, and Section 57’s proviso has outlived it.
There are good answers, though they are not conclusive.
- First, a challenge framed this way attacks the exemption, not Section 69 itself, and the remedy it seeks (extension of Section 69 to Hindus) is one a court cannot grant.
- Second, the presumption of constitutionality applies, and the burden of showing that the rationale has actually disappeared rests on the challenger, with evidence. A court would want to know whether Hindu testators’ practices and obligations have in fact converged.
- Third, the maintenance and personal-law justifications, whatever their limits, remain arguable, and the presumption is not displaced by showing that a rationale is merely weaker.
The time argument therefore improves the policy case for reform more than it improves the prospects of a constitutional challenge.
E. Manifest Arbitrariness
Section 69 is not capricious or irrational, and it has an adequate determining principle: marriage is a clearly defined event, and the rule applies uniformly to everyone within its scope. The deficiencies identified in Part III, the irrebuttable presumption and the missing saving for wills made in contemplation of marriage, are matters of policy. They show that the rule is blunt, not that it is manifestly arbitrary, and given the higher threshold the Court applies to plenary legislation (Association for Democratic Reforms), they would not ordinarily suffice.
F. Assessment Under Article 14
On the existing authorities Section 69, and the Hindu exception that accompanies it, should survive Article 14. The classification follows a personal-law line, the presumption of constitutionality applies, under-inclusion is not fatal, the section does not curtail testamentary capacity, and its object remains legitimate.
The Hindu exception is the soft point. Its original premise has weakened, and the justifications that now support it are institutional or of limited force. It remains constitutionally sustainable, but it is not strongly defensible on the merits.
VII. Article 15(1): Discrimination “Only” on Grounds of Religion
Article 15(1) provides that the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them. The Supreme Court described the guarantee in Nain Sukh Das v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1953 SC 384 as conferred on the citizen as an individual, against being subjected to discrimination in the rights, privileges and immunities pertaining to him as a citizen generally.
A challenger would say that Sections 57 and 69 sort testators by religion and give them different consequences. Four answers can be given.
1. No Disadvantage Is Shown
Discrimination implies adverse treatment. Section 69 is a default with a protective object that the testator can avoid by a simple act. A rule of this kind is difficult to characterise as a prejudicial distinction against the persons it governs.
2. The Ground Is Not Religion “Only”
The line between the regimes follows the architecture of personal law and legislative history, as Part IV showed. The same Act removes Muslims from Part VI altogether and modifies the rules for Hindus. A classification that tracks a system of personal laws is not the same as a classification that selects persons for worse treatment because of their faith.
3. There Is No Sex-Based Distinction
Section 69 speaks of the “maker” and applies equally to a testator or testatrix. It is untouched by the sex limb of Article 15(1).
4. Article 14 Is the Effective Vehicle
Vallamattom concerned a religion-specific burden and was argued on Articles 14 and 15, and the Court’s declaration of invalidity rested on Article 14. If a challenge to Section 69 is to succeed anywhere, it will succeed through the Article 14 time argument above, not through Article 15.
Conclusion: The Limited Role of Article 15(1)
The honest position is that Article 15(1) adds little. If the distinction survives Article 14, it survives Article 15 for the reasons given. If it fails Article 14 because its rationale has expired, the Article 15 argument is superfluous.
VIII. Practitioner’s Checklist
1. Identify the Governing Regime First
Establish the testator’s religion, whether Sections 57–58 apply, whether the testator is within a tribe exempted under Section 3, and whether the marriage was under the Special Marriage Act, 1954. Do not assume the proviso to Section 57 applies to a Hindu who marries under that Act.
2. Fix the Dates
Section 69 operates only if the will pre-dates the marriage. Prove the date of the will and the date of the marriage by documents, not recollection.
3. Test the Marriage
A void marriage, for example a bigamous marriage contracted in breach of Section 5(i) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (Yamunabai Anantrao Adhav), raises an unsettled question whether it can revoke a will. Plead both ways where the facts require.
4. Read the Power Instrument
If the will exercises a power of appointment, ask where the property would go in default of appointment. The exception applies only if it would not go to the donee’s own executors, administrators or intestate heirs.
5. Assume No Saving for Contemplation of Marriage
The section contains none. A will made before a marriage, however clearly it anticipates it, is revoked by the marriage. Advise clients to execute a fresh will after the ceremony.
6. Treat Codicils With the Will
A codicil forms part of the will and falls with it.
7. Review Wills Under Hindu Personal Law
For Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains, marriage does not revoke the will, but it may still have made it obsolete. Advise a review. Revocation, if intended, must follow the modes in Section 70.
8. Plead Revocation by Marriage Specifically
In probate and succession disputes, a party relying on revocation by marriage should plead Section 69 specifically and prove the marriage. A party resisting it should examine whether the exception, the personal-law regime or the validity of the marriage takes the case outside the section.
IX. Reform
Three courses are open. The first is to leave the section as it is, which is constitutionally safe but perpetuates its two defects: irrebuttability, and the trap for the testator who made his will with a particular marriage in view. The second is the narrow reform that the Law Commission of India proposed in its 110th Report, a saving for a will expressed to be made in contemplation of marriage. England adopted a comparable saving by statute, and the case for it is strong because the presumption on which Section 69 rests is at its weakest in that situation. The third is a uniform rule for all communities, consistent with the aspiration in Article 44 that the Supreme Court has repeatedly noted (Sarla Mudgal; Lily Thomas). That would either extend Section 69, with the saving, to Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains, or replace automatic revocation everywhere with a rebuttable presumption.
The author’s view is that the second course should be taken now and the third considered as part of any wider revision of Part VI. The Commission itself observed, in discussing Section 57, that sections of the Act not applicable to Hindus may require a second look from the standpoint of whether they should apply to them. The exception for Hindus has been in place for a century. Its justification should be re-examined by Parliament, not left to be tested by litigation that a court is ill placed to resolve.
X. Conclusion
Section 69 is a blunt instrument, but it is a recognisable one. It rests on a defensible presumption about the effect of marriage on a testator’s intentions, it is protective in object, it does not curtail testamentary capacity, and it is avoidable by a simple act. The Hindu exception that accompanies it is a product of the Act’s personal-law architecture and of the marriage law that prevailed when it was framed. On the Supreme Court’s existing doctrine of classification, under-inclusion and presumption of constitutionality, both the section and the exception should withstand Articles 14 and 15. Vallamattom is distinguishable because Section 118 curtailed capacity and Section 69 does not.
But constitutionality is not the same as soundness. The monogamous premise that once explained the Hindu exception has largely vanished, the maintenance rationale is weaker than it appears, and the missing saving for wills made in contemplation of marriage is a real flaw. The time-based reasoning in Satyawati Sharma and Motor General Traders does not by itself invalidate the exception, but it does mark it as a candidate for legislative review. The appropriate remedy lies with Parliament.
Citation Table
A. Supreme Court Decisions
| Authority | Citation | Used For |
|---|---|---|
| Ram Krishna Dalmia v. Justice S.R. Tendolkar | AIR 1958 SC 538 | Classification principles; presumption of constitutionality; degrees of harm |
| State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar | AIR 1952 SC 75 | Classification under Article 14 |
| In re Special Courts Bill, 1978 | (1979) 1 SCC 380 | Restatement of classification principles |
| Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India | (1978) 1 SCC 248 | Non-arbitrariness within Article 14 |
| State of Gujarat v. Shri Ambica Mills Ltd. | AIR 1974 SC 1300; (1974) 4 SCC 656 (decided 26 Mar 1974; Constitution Bench) | Under-inclusion is not fatal |
| Shayara Bano v. Union of India | (2017) 9 SCC 1 (22 Aug 2017) | Manifest arbitrariness; statute as “law in force” |
| Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India | (2018) 10 SCC 1 | Manifest arbitrariness reaffirmed |
| Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India (Electoral Bonds) | 2024 INSC 113 | Standard for plenary vs subordinate legislation |
| Satyawati Sharma (Dead) by LRs v. Union of India | [2008] 6 SCR 566 (16 Apr 2008); (2008) 5 SCC 287 | Classification may lapse with changed circumstances |
| Motor General Traders v. State of Andhra Pradesh | AIR 1984 SC 121; (1984) 1 SCC 222 | |
| John Vallamattom v. Union of India | AIR 2003 SC 2902; (2003) 6 SCC 611 (21 Jul 2003) | Section 118 struck down under Article 14 |
| Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India | AIR 1995 SC 1531; (1995) 3 SCC 635 (10 May 1995) | Hindu Marriage Act codification; Article 44 |
| Lily Thomas v. Union of India | (2000) 6 SCC 224 | Sarla Mudgal reaffirmed |
| Ahmedabad Women Action Group v. Union of India | AIR 1997 SC 3614; (1997) 3 SCC 573 (24 Feb 1997) | Personal-law reform is a legislative matter |
| Pannalal Bansilal Pitti v. State of Andhra Pradesh | AIR 1996 SC 1023; (1996) 2 SCC 498 (17 Jan 1996) | Community-specific reform upheld |
| Yamunabai Anantrao Adhav v. Anantrao Shivram Adhav | AIR 1988 SC 644; (1988) 1 SCC 530 (27 Jan 1988) | Bigamous Hindu marriage void ab initio |
| Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum | AIR 1985 SC 945; (1985) 2 SCC 556 (23 Apr 1985) | Section 125 CrPC is secular |
| Nain Sukh Das v. State of Uttar Pradesh | AIR 1953 SC 384; [1953] SCR 1184 (22 May 1953) | Nature of the Article 15(1) guarantee |
B. Statutes, Reports and Other Material
| Source | Provision / Reference | Used For |
|---|---|---|
| Indian Succession Act, 1925 | Section 69 and Explanation | Text of the provision |
| Indian Succession Act, 1925 | Section 57 (clauses (a)–(c) and proviso) | Application to Hindus etc.; marriage shall not revoke |
| Indian Succession Act, 1925 | Section 58; Schedule III rider to Section 70 (“than by marriage or” omitted) | Scope of Part VI; modified Section 70 |
| Indian Succession Act, 1925 | Sections 2(b) and 62 (codicil part of will; will revocable at any time) | Codicil falls with will; ambulatory nature |
| Special Marriage Act, 1954 | Sections 21 and 21-A | Interaction with Sections 57, 58 and 69 |
| Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 | Section 18 | Hindu wife’s maintenance right |
| Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 | Sections 5(i) and 11 | Monogamy; void marriages |
| Divorce Act, 1869 | Sections 36–37 (alimony in matrimonial proceedings) | Christian wife’s alimony |
| Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 / BNSS, 2023 | Section 125 / Section 144 | Secular maintenance remedy |
| Law Commission of India, 110th Report on the Indian Succession Act, 1925 | Para 11.2 (Section 57) and the chapter on Section 69 | Second-look observation; proposed saving for wills in contemplation of marriage |
| Wills Act 1837 (England), as amended in 1982 | Section 18 | English saving for wills in contemplation of marriage |
| Maxim: ambulatoria est voluntas defuncti… | Epigraph | Ornament |
Written By: Inder Chand Jain
Ph no: 8279945021, Email: [email protected]
