INDIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Tanmay Patnaik, Raj Chheda and Eisha Singh, Trilegal
The domestic legal framework: modernisation in patches Abolition of the mandatory probate and the end of a colonial bottleneck With effect from 21 December 2025, India abolished the mandatory probate requirement for Hindus, Bud - dhists, Sikhs, Jains and Parsis in the presidency towns of Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. The earlier regime applied unevenly across communities and had long been regarded as an unnecessary procedural burden; one that made estate administration slow and expen - sive, and, in contested cases, dragged proceedings out for years. For straightforward estates, the reform is a meaningful simplification. What it does not provide is a replace - ment for probate’s function of conclusively establish - ing the validity of a Will and the executor’s represent - ative title. Beneficiaries claiming under a Will which has not been probated remain exposed to challenges based on capacity, undue influence or forgery – a par - ticular concern for high-value immovable property, where mutation entries do not determine ownership and purchasers may continue to face title uncertainty. In practice, the market has yet to fully adapt. Institu - tional processes and housing society by-laws often continue to insist on probate, and banks, registrars and other counterparties may still prefer a court-vali - dated Will for significant transactions. For ultra-high- net-worth families, the question has shifted from legal compulsion to risk management. The reform simpli - fies administration for straightforward estates, but for complex or high-value ones, voluntary probate remains a strategic tool. The Uniform Civil Code : a patchwork in progress The Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is a proposed common legal framework intended to replace religion-based personal laws governing marriage, divorce, succes - sion and inheritance. The move towards UCC is driven by a stated objective of legal uniformity and gender equality, though it remains politically and socially con - tested. In the absence of a national law, individual states have begun enacting their own versions, cre - ating an evolving and non-uniform landscape. Utta - rakhand became the first state to operationalise a state-level UCC in January 2025, followed by Gujarat
in March 2026, while Assam has moved ahead with a phased reform process. Several other states remain in a wait-and-watch mode pending a national frame - work. The practical implication is that questions of succes - sion, marriage and family arrangements may, in cer - tain cases, now be shaped by both religion and domi - cile – an additional layer of fragmentation for families with members or assets spread across jurisdictions. This variability reinforces the case for wealth consoli - dation vehicles, particularly private trusts, as a struc - turally neutral alternative. Assets held under such vehicles generally operate outside the personal law regime applicable to the individual, offering a religion- neutral and jurisdiction-flexible framework for hold - ing and transmitting family wealth in an increasingly uneven legal landscape. Old family disputes, new resolution strategies The anatomy of a modern Indian estate dispute India’s judicial system carries an estimated 52 million pending cases, with inheritance and probate disputes forming a significant share, and their nature is chang - ing. Today’s disputes increasingly turn on the legiti - macy of the instruments through which wealth was structured, the capacity and intention of the person who created them, and competing claims of family members whose relationships and legal rights have been complicated by remarriage, estrangement, geo - graphic separation and generational differences. The Sunjay Kapur estate dispute, which emerged in 2025 following his death, illustrates the anatomy well. The personal estate, reported at approximate - ly INR30,000 crores (1 crore equals INR10 million), became the subject of two distinct proceedings almost immediately. The first, brought by his children from his first marriage to Karisma Kapoor, challenges the validity of an unregistered Will dated March 2025, under which his second wife, Priya Sachdev Kapur, is said to inherit the entire estate to the exclusion of his children and his mother. The second concerns the RK Family Trust, created in 2017, which his mother Rani Kapur alleges was used to divest her of her legacy and control – a trust naming her as settlor and trustee, but making Priya Kapur and others the sole beneficiaries.
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