Probate of a Will — Procedure Under the Indian Succession Act, 1925

This article is for educational and legal awareness purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice or solicitation. Please consult a qualified advocate for advice on specific legal matters.

What Probate Is

Probate is a certificate issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, under its seal, certifying that a will has been proved and establishing the authority of the executor named in it to administer the deceased’s estate. It is not a document of title to property, as a sale deed is — it is a judicial certification of the will’s genuineness and the executor’s authority to act under it. A court will not grant probate unless the will is proved as required by Section 63 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 (and Section 68 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, formerly Section 68 of the Evidence Act) — ordinarily requiring at least one attesting witness to be examined to prove due execution and attestation.

Probate is granted only to an executor named in the will. Where the will names no executor, or the named executor cannot or will not act, the appropriate remedy is letters of administration with the will annexed. Where a person dies intestate, the corresponding remedy is a grant of letters of administration simpliciter, to the person entitled under the applicable law of intestate succession.

Mandatory or Optional — The Position Before the 2025 Repeal

For most of its history, Section 213 of the Act provided that no right as an executor or legatee could be established in any court unless probate of the will, or letters of administration with the will annexed, had first been granted. But this bar never applied universally. Section 213(2) confined it to two categories: wills by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, or Jains falling within Section 57, clauses (a) and (b) — executed on or after 1 September 1870 within the territories then under the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, or within the original civil jurisdiction of the High Courts of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, or elsewhere so far as they concerned immovable property within those limits — and wills by Parsis dying after the Indian Succession (Amendment) Act, 1962, tied to the same territorial limits.

Section 213 never applied to wills by Muhammadans, and applied to wills by Indian Christians only in the more limited sense reflected in the succession-certificate provisions below. Critically for Uttar Pradesh, the mandatory-probate bar under old Section 213 had no application to wills executed in UP by Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, or Jains, unless the will concerned immovable property within the old Presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay. For the ordinary estate in Lucknow, probate was — even before the recent change — a matter of choice, though obtaining it voluntarily was routinely recommended for the evidentiary certainty it provides.

The 2025 Repeal of Section 213

This already-limited requirement has now been removed altogether. The Repealing and Amending Act, 2025 (Act No. 37 of 2025), assented to on 20 December 2025, omitted Section 213 from the Act, with a consequential amendment to Section 370 (which had restricted the grant of succession certificates where probate or letters of administration was required). The effect is that, across India — irrespective of religion or of the former Presidency limits — probate or letters of administration is no longer a statutory precondition to establishing rights as an executor or legatee in court. A will may now be proved as ordinary documentary evidence in the course of a suit, without a prior grant.

Two cautions follow. First, the omission is recent, and its application to proceedings already pending when it took effect has not yet been settled by the courts. Second, removing the legal compulsion to obtain probate does not remove its practical value. Probate remains conclusive evidence of representative title under Section 273, operating as a judgment in rem binding the whole world, and it indemnifies anyone who deals in good faith with the grantee. Banks and sub-registrars frequently continue to expect probate as a matter of internal practice, regardless of what the statute now requires. For estates of any complexity, or wherever a dispute among heirs is foreseeable, obtaining probate voluntarily remains the prudent course.

Probate, Letters of Administration, and Succession Certificate

These three grants are often confused but serve distinct purposes:

Probate certifies a will and authorises the named executor to administer the estate under it.
Letters of administration are granted where there is no executor (or the named executor cannot or will not act), or where the deceased died intestate — authorising an administrator to collect and distribute the estate.
A succession certificate, granted under Part X of the Act (Sections 370–390), is narrower and confined to debts and securities — it does not extend to immovable property and does not establish title to land or a house. Section 370 continues to bar a succession certificate wherever the right must instead be established through probate or letters of administration; note that the Indian Kanoon mirror of Section 370 still cross-refers to “section 213,” not yet editorially updated to reflect the 2025 omission.

A separate article on this website covers the succession-certificate procedure and its distinction from a legal heir certificate in detail.

Jurisdiction — Which Court

Under Section 264(1), the District Judge has jurisdiction to grant and revoke probate and letters of administration in all cases within his district. Section 264(2) carries a historical territorial qualification: except in cases to which Section 57 applies, no court beyond Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay was to entertain such applications for a Hindu, Muhammadan, Buddhist, Sikh, or Jain deceased until the State Government notified it to do so. In practice, this was satisfied for District Courts across Uttar Pradesh decades ago, and Lucknow’s District Judge routinely exercises original testamentary jurisdiction over estates within the district.

The petition is filed before the District Judge of the district where the deceased had a fixed place of abode, or, failing that, where any property is situate. In Lucknow, that means the court of the District Judge, Lucknow — not the Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench, whose role in probate matters is ordinarily appellate or revisional, since the High Court does not exercise original civil jurisdiction over the district in the way the former Presidency High Courts did.

The Petition Procedure

An application for probate is made by a petition under Section 276, with the will (or a copy or statement of its contents) annexed, stating: the time of the testator’s death; that the annexed writing is the last will; that it was duly executed; the value of assets likely to come to the petitioner’s hands; and, for probate, that the petitioner is the named executor. Where filed before the District Judge, the petition must also show that the deceased had a fixed abode, or property, within that jurisdiction; where assets lie in more than one State, it must state their value in each and the District Judges concerned.

Supporting documents ordinarily include the original will, the death certificate, and particulars of the surviving next-of-kin and their addresses.

Citations to Next-of-Kin

Once a petition is filed, Section 283 empowers the District Judge (or District Delegate) to examine the petitioner on oath, call for further evidence, and — importantly — issue a citation calling upon all persons claiming an interest in the estate to appear before any grant is made. The citation is fixed up at the court-house and the Collector’s office, and otherwise published as the court directs — in practice, typically supplemented by newspaper publication — so that next-of-kin and legatees have notice and an opportunity to object. Where assets lie in another State, a copy is sent to that State’s District Judge for corresponding publication. This citation process is what distinguishes a probate grant from a purely administrative one: formal notice precedes the certification of the will and the executor’s authority.

Contested Proceedings

If a caveat is lodged or an objection filed in response to the citation, the matter becomes contentious. Section 295 provides that, in any contentious case before the District Judge, the proceedings take, as nearly as may be, the form of a regular suit under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 — the petitioner as plaintiff, the objector as defendant. This converts a summary testamentary proceeding into a civil trial on the will’s validity, though courts have clarified that even a converted Section 295 proceeding retains the limited character of a probate enquiry — confined to genuineness and due execution, not every dispute between the parties. A separate article on this website discusses the “suspicious circumstances” doctrine governing how courts scrutinise contested wills.

A person anticipating that another party may seek an ex parte grant may also consider lodging a caveat under the Code of Civil Procedure to ensure prior notice — addressed in a separate article on caveat petitions on this website.

Timelines and Court Fees, in General Terms

Timelines vary depending on whether the matter is unopposed or contested. An unopposed petition, where no caveat or objection is filed within the citation period, can ordinarily be disposed of within months once the notice period and proof of due execution are complete. A contested matter, converted into a suit under Section 295, follows the ordinary timeline of civil litigation and can take substantially longer.

Court fee on a probate or letters-of-administration petition is payable under the Court Fees Act, 1870, as applicable in Uttar Pradesh, calculated ad valorem on the value of the estate — a separate article on this website addresses court fees and limitation for civil matters in the State in more detail. Specific fee slabs are not set out here, since fee schedules are periodically revised and are best confirmed from the current statutory schedule or the court’s fee counter at the time of filing.

Practical Points for Uttar Pradesh and Lucknow

Probate is, since the 2025 repeal of Section 213, optional throughout India — but it was already optional for most UP estates before that change, since the old bar was tied to wills connected with Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay.
Voluntarily obtaining probate remains useful because of Section 273 — a conclusive, judgment-in-rem certification of title that ordinary proof of a will in a private dispute does not provide, and one banks and sub-registrars often still expect in practice.
In Lucknow, the petition is filed before the District Judge having jurisdiction over the deceased’s place of abode or property — not before the Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench, whose involvement is ordinarily confined to appeals or revisions from the District Judge’s orders.
Citations under Section 283 give next-of-kin a formal opportunity to object; a person interested in an estate should watch for such publication, or consider a caveat, rather than assume silence protects their position.
Where the estate consists only of debts and securities, and no probate is required, a succession certificate under Part X may be the more direct remedy — see the related article on succession certificates.
Case-status information, cause lists, and caveat searches can be checked through the eCourts High Court Services portal; e-filing, where enabled, is available through the eCourts e-filing portal.

Useful Resources

Disclaimer: The information provided on this website is for general legal awareness and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice, advertisement, or solicitation. No reader should act or refrain from acting based on this information without seeking professional legal counsel. Advocate Akhil Singh and this website are not liable for any actions taken based on the content provided herein.