Court
Handled by Advocate N. J. Parmar, B.A., LL.B., more than thirty-five years at the Bar. Court practice and notaryship run together: under section 3 of the Notaries Act, 1952 read with Rule 3 of the Notaries Rules, 1956, notaries are appointed from among advocates of long standing, and the application is routed through the court where the advocate practises.
Section 213 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 barred an executor or legatee from establishing a right in court without probate or letters of administration, for certain classes of will. It was omitted by the Repealing and Amending Act, 2025 (Act 37 of 2025), assented on 20 December 2025, so that bar is gone. Two cautions before anyone relies on it: the amendment is recent and untested in court, and accrued rights and pending proceedings are saved. Section 213 never applied in Vadodara in any event — its bar was confined to the classes of will in section 57(a) and (b). Institutions may still ask for probate under their own practice.
What probate is for
Probate is the court's certification that a will is genuine and that the executor named in it may act on it. Letters of administration perform a similar function where there is no will, or no executor able and willing to act.
With the statutory bar removed, the question becomes practical rather than mandatory: is it worth obtaining? It generally is where —
- the will is likely to be challenged, or the family is not united;
- the estate is substantial, or includes assets an institution will not release without it;
- the executor needs clear authority to deal with third parties;
- an institution insists on it as a matter of its own internal practice — which it still may.
It generally is not worth it where the estate is modest, the family agrees, and the institutions holding the assets will release them against an indemnity bond and heir no-objections.
Section 213 never applied in Vadodara, and it has now been omitted altogether. An institution may still ask for probate as a condition of its own — which is its prerogative — but that is a policy, not a legal requirement, and it is sometimes negotiable against an indemnity.
The process
A petition to the District Court with the original will, proof of the testator's death, and evidence of due execution — which is why the attesting witnesses matter so much and why their addresses should have been recorded when the will was made. Citations are issued, and where the will is contested the matter becomes a full proceeding.
Where a claim is time-barred, where the document relied on was never registered and therefore cannot be received in evidence of the transaction under section 49 of the Registration Act, 1908, or where the realistic recovery is less than the cost of recovering it — you will be told at the first meeting, not after money has been spent. A settlement reached quickly is very often worth more than a decree obtained slowly.
Drafted here, in Gujarati or English
Drafted by an advocate of 35+ years rather than filled into a downloaded template, e-stamped at a Government authorised centre, and notarised in the same visit. If the parties read Gujarati, the document is drafted in Gujarati — not translated out of an English form, because legal Gujarati has its own settled vocabulary and a literal translation frequently means something looser.
What to bring
- The original will, and any codicils
- Death certificate of the testator
- Details and addresses of the attesting witnesses
- A schedule of the estate
- Details of all heirs and beneficiaries
- Any correspondence from an institution asking for probate