A plaint seeking declaration of ownership under a Will was held...

A plaint seeking declaration of ownership under a Will was held liable to rejection where a meaningful reading showed a benami and unlawful arrangement barred by statute and by the rule that agreements with unlawful objects are void. The Court held that the 2016 amendment to the benami law was curative and procedural, so the machinery for attachment, adjudication, confiscation and appeals applied retrospectively to earlier transactions, while penal consequences remained prospective. It further held that the fiduciary-capacity exception was narrowly confined and inapplicable on the pleaded facts, and that a person could not inherit through a Will while suppressing material facts relating to a murder accusation. The rejection of the plaint was restored.

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