Vidhara

The Indian Succession Act, 1925

§81Extrinsic evidence inadmissible in case of patent ambiguity or deficiency

Where there is an ambiguity or deficiency on the face of a will, no extrinsic evidence as to the intentions of the testator shall be admitted. Illustrations (i) A man has an aunt, Caroline, and a cousin, Mary, and has no aunt of the name of Mary. By his will he bequeaths 1,000 rupees to "my aunt, Caroline" and 1,000 rupees to "my cousin, Mary" and afterwards bequeaths 2,000 rupees to "my before-mentioned aunt, Mary". There is no person to whom the description given in the will can apply, and evidence is not admissible to show who was meant by "my before- mentioned aunt, Mary". The bequest is therefore void for uncertainty under section 89. (ii) A bequeaths 1,000 rupees to leaving a blank for the name of the legatee. Evidence is not admissible to show what name the testator intended to insert. (iii) A bequeaths to B rupees, or "my estate of ". Evidence is not admissible to show what sum or what estate the testator intended to insert.

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Official text: India Code (official)

Official India Code text: The Indian Succession Act, 1925, English PDF (bitstream 123456789/19051/1/indian_succession_act_1925.pdf, 694,325 bytes, sha256 07fb374ab81026e8...) fetched directly from indiacode.nic.in (Akamai edge, DNS via dns.google) on 2026-08-03. This PDF brackets its footnotes with drawn rules and renders superscript markers inline ("1*50. General principles…"), both of which are handled at ingest (D-062). Section 52 is absent because this edition does not print it — its own footnote records sections 50 to 56 being substituted by Act 17 of 1939. Extracted via pdftotext 26.07 -bbox and the @nexlex/ingest inline parser. Automated parse; footnotes and amendment history excluded. Spot-verified against the PDF; full clause-level proofread pending.

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