The Indian Succession Act, 1925

This Act may be called the Indian Succession Act, 1925.

Note: footnote 1 on page 17 is printed against the Act number and records the territories the Act has been extended to; footnote 2 is the omission marked 2*** in the long title and in the preamble.

In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context,—

(a) “administrator” means a person appointed by competent authority to administer the estate of a deceased person when there is no executor;

(b) “codicil” means an instrument made in relation to a Will, and explaining, altering or adding to its dispositions, and shall be deemed to form part of the Will;

³[(bb) “District Judge” means the Judge of a Principal Civil Court of original jurisdiction;]

(c) “executor” means a person to whom the execution of the last Will of a deceased person is, by the testator’s appointment, confided;

⁴[(cc) “India” means the territory of India excluding the State of Jammu and Kashmir;]

(dd) “Indian Christian” means a native of India who is, or in good faith claims to be, of unmixed Asiatic descent and who professes any form of the Christian religion;

(e) “minor” means any person subject to the Indian Majority Act, 1875 (9 of 1875) who has not attained his majority within the meaning of that Act, and any other person who has not completed the age of eighteen years; and “minority” means the status of any such person;

(f) “probate” means the copy of a will certified under the seal of a court of competent jurisdiction with a grant of administration to the estate of the testator;

⁵[(g) “State” includes any division of India having a court of the last resort;] and

(h) “will” means the legal declaration of the intention of a testator with respect to his property which he desires to be carried into effect after his death.

(1) The State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, either retrospectively from the sixteenth day of March, 1865, or prospectively, exempt from the operation of any of the following provisions of this Act, namely, sections 5 to 49 , 58 to 191 , 212 ⁶[, 213] and 215 to 369, the members of any race, sect or tribe in the State, or of any part of such race, sect or tribe, to whom the State Government considers it impossible or inexpedient to apply such provisions or any of them mentioned in the order.

(2) The State Government may, by a like notification, revoke any such order, but not so that the revocation shall have retrospective effect.

(3) Persons exempted under this section or exempted from the operation of any of the provisions of the Indian Succession Act¹, 1865 (10 of 1865), under section 332 of that Act are in this Act referred to as “exempted persons”.