Section 103 BSA: Saving of Indian Succession Act provisions relating to wills

Text of Section 103 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023

What Section 103 means

Section 103 preserves the special statutory rules used for interpreting wills. Chapter VI of the BSA governs the exclusion of oral evidence by documentary evidence, but Section 103 prevents those rules from being read as overriding the Indian Succession Act, 1925 on the construction of wills.

In practical terms, when a court has to determine the meaning and legal effect of words used in a will, the relevant provisions of the Indian Succession Act continue to apply. Section 103 therefore operates as a statutory boundary between the BSA rules in Chapter VI and the special rules governing testamentary construction.

Key points

• Saving clause: the provision protects another existing body of law from being affected by Chapter VI of the BSA.
• Law protected: the Indian Succession Act, 1925.
• Subject protected: provisions concerning the construction or interpretation of wills.
• Scope: Section 103 does not itself set out the rules for construing a will; it preserves the Succession Act rules that do so.

Indian Succession Act provisions on construction of wills

Part VI, Chapter VI of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 contains the principal provisions on construction of wills. These include rules concerning the wording of wills, identification of persons or property referred to in a will, misdescription, ambiguity, reading the will as a whole, preference between possible constructions, and giving effect to the testator's intention as far as the law permits.

For example, Section 74 of the Indian Succession Act addresses the wording of wills, while later provisions in the same Chapter deal with the manner in which clauses and descriptions are to be interpreted.

Where Section 103 fits in the BSA

Section 103 appears at the end of Chapter VI of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, titled "Of the Exclusion of Oral Evidence by Documentary Evidence." The preceding provisions in this Chapter regulate the effect of documentary terms and the circumstances in which evidence may be given about matters connected with written documents.

The next provision, Section 104, begins Chapter VII on the burden of proof.

Official legal sources

The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 is Act No. 47 of 2023 and came into force on 1 July 2024. For authoritative statutory material, refer to India Code and the Ministry of Home Affairs.