Section 301 Succession Act read broadly: Will-contestant may seek executor removal, and an amended petition can stand independently.

Section 301 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 was read according to its plain language: the High Court may suspend, remove or discharge a private executor or administrator, and the statute does not restrict who may apply to a beneficiary or legatee accepting the Will. A caveator or Will-contestant was therefore not barred from seeking removal, and the Court declined to add a limitation not expressed by the legislature. The Court also held that a petition under Section 301 could stand as an independent proceeding after amendment, and an earlier misdescription could not defeat maintainability.

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Issues: (i) Whether an application under Section 301 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 for removal of an executor can be made only by a beneficiary or legatee who accepts the Will and not by a person who contests the Will or the probate proceedings; (ii) whether the Misc. Petition under Section 301 was maintainable as an independent proceeding.

Issue (i): Whether an application under Section 301 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 for removal of an executor can be made only by a beneficiary or legatee who accepts the Will and not by a person who contests the Will or the probate proceedings.

Analysis: The language of Section 301 authorises the High Court, on an application made to it, to suspend, remove or discharge a private executor or administrator and provide for succession to that office. The provision contains no restriction confining the right to apply only to a beneficiary or legatee who accepts the Will. The Court applied the plain meaning rule and declined to read into the statute a limitation that the legislature had not expressed. It also held that no casus omissus could be supplied, since the text of the provision was clear and unambiguous. The reasoning that a caveator who challenges the Will is necessarily barred from seeking removal of an executor was rejected.

Conclusion: The restrictive interpretation was held to be unsustainable, and a person contesting the Will was not barred from invoking Section 301.

Issue (ii): Whether the Misc. Petition under Section 301 was maintainable as an independent proceeding.

Analysis: The record showed that the petition had been inadvertently described as part of the testamentary proceedings, but the error had already been allowed to be corrected by amendment. After amendment, the petition stood as an independent proceeding. The Court held that the earlier misdescription could not defeat maintainability, and that the learned Single Judge had erred in treating the petition as non-maintainable on that basis.

Conclusion: The Misc. Petition was held to be maintainable as an independent proceeding.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded on the question of maintainability, the impugned order was set aside, and the matter was remitted for decision on merits.

Ratio Decidendi: Section 301 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 permits an application for removal of an executor or administrator by any person otherwise entitled to invoke the provision, and the Court cannot add a limitation excluding a caveator or Will-contestant where the statute does not do so.

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