General principles for construction of a Will have been reiterated by supreme court in a large number of cases. It shall be sufficient to refer to a three Judge Bench judgment of this court in Navneet Lal alias Rangi v. Gokul & Others, 1976 (1) SCC 630. After referring to judgment of Privy Council and several judgments of this court, certain principles were enumerated in paragraph 8 of the judgment, which is to the following effect:
“8. From the earlier decisions of this Court the following principles, inter alia, are well established:
(1) In construing a document whether in English or in vernacular the fundamental rule is to ascertain the intention from the words used; the surrounding circumstances are to be considered ; but that is only for the purpose of finding out the intended meaning of the words which have actually been employed.(Ram Gopal v. Nand Lal)
(2) In construing the language of the will the court is entitled to put itself into the testator’s armchair (Venkata Narasimha v. Parthasarathy) and is bound to bear in mind also other matters than merely the words used. It must consider the surrounding circumstances, the position of the testator, his family relationship, the probability that he would use words in a particular sense. . . . But all this is solely as an aid to arriving at a right construction of the will, and to ascertain the meaning of its language when used by that particular testator in that document. (Venkata Narasimha’s case(supra) and Gnambal Ammal v. T. Raju Ayyar)
(3) The true intention of the testator has to be gathered not by attaching importance to isolated expression but by reading the will as a whole with all its provisions and ignoring none of them as redundant or contradictory. (Raj Bajrang Bahadur Singh v. Thakurain Bakhtraj Kuer)
(4) The Court must accept, if possible, such construction as would give to every expression some effect rather than that which would render any of the expressions inoperative. The court will look at the circumstances under which the testator makes his will, such as the state of his property, of his family and the like. Where apparently conflicting dispositions can be reconciled by giving full effect to every word used in a document, such a construction should be accepted instead of a construction which would have the effect of cutting down the clear meaning of the words used by the testator. Further, where one of the two reasonable constructions would lead to intestacy that should be discarded in favour of a construction which does not create any such hiatus. (Pearey Lal v. Rameshwar Das)
(5) It is one of the cardinal principles of construction of wills that to the extent that it is legally possible effect should be given to every disposition contained in the will unless the law prevents effect being given to it. Of course, if there are two repugnant provisions conferring successive interests, if the first interest created is valid the subsequent interest cannot take effect but a court of construction will proceed to the farthest extent to avoid repugnancy, so that effect could be given as far as possible to every testamentary intention contained in the will. (Ramachandra Shenoy v. Mrs. Hilda Brite)”
