The Andhra Pradesh High Court recently ruled that when there are two conflicting claims over a property based on Wills, the registered Will takes precedence over the unregistered one, especially if there are suspicious circumstances are involved. This ruling brought an end to a 36-year-old legal battle over a property in Kakinada.
What led to this property dispute?
The Late Saladi Subbarao had four children (three sons and one daughter). To support his only daughter, Smt. Pamarthi Subbayamma, who was married to the late Pamarthi Venkataswamy of Satyavada Village, Subbarao gifted her some agricultural lands.
Smt Subbayamma used these lands to cultivate crops and with the money she earned, she bought a land via a sale deed on February 14, 1962, and built a house.
This house later became the subject of a dispute among Subbayamma's brothers. Two of her brothers, Saladi Gangaraju and Saladi Parthasaradhi, argued that Subbayamma had transferred the property to them through a registered Will dated April 18, 1983 and a subsequent unregistered Will dated December 29, 1991.
However, Subbayamma's other brother, Saladi Hanumantha Rao, contended that she had already executed a registered Will dated August 31, 1990, giving the entire property to him.
Subbayamma had no children and so the central issue on who gets her property came down to a fight between: Registered Will (Hanumantha) vs Unregistered Will (Gangaraju and Parthasaradhi).
An illustration of the family tree is as follows:
