Parliament Abolishes Colonial Probate Rule, Simplifies Hindu Succession Laws

Mumbai: Parliament earlier this week cleared a sweeping reform that will end a long-standing anomaly in India’s succession laws, paving the way for Hindus and several other communities to no longer require mandatory probate of wills in many cases.

The move came with the passage of the Repealing and Amending Bill, 2025, which scraps 71 obsolete laws and amends four others to simplify the legal framework and remove colonial-era discrimination. The Bill was passed by voice vote in the Rajya Sabha after being approved by the Lok Sabha a day earlier. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said the legislation was aimed at improving the “ease of living” for citizens by eliminating outdated provisions that created unnecessary legal hurdles.

A key change relates to Section 213 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925. Under the existing law, wills made by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and Parsis in the former presidency towns of Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai) and Calcutta (Kolkata) required probate, or court validation, before they could be enforced. This requirement did not apply to Muslims, resulting in an unequal legal regime based on religion and geography. Meghwal told Parliament that such distinctions were incompatible with the Constitution.

“Any discrimination on the basis of religion, caste or sex is prohibited,” he said, describing the probate requirement as a colonial relic that needed to be dismantled. The amendments to the Succession Act will remove mandatory court validation of wills in specified cases, bringing greater uniformity to inheritance laws. The Bill also amends the General Clauses Act, 1897, and the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, to update archaic terminology, and corrects a drafting error in the Disaster Management Act, 2005. In all, 71 defunct statutes — including the Indian Tramways Act of 1886 — will be repealed.

Opposition members offered mixed reactions. Congress leader Vivek K Tankha argued that the government had focused on technical clean-up without fully assessing the impact on citizens. Trinamool Congress MP Sushmita Deo said the exercise should also be used to identify provisions that undermine civil liberties and dissent. BJP member Subhash Barala, however, said people had suffered long enough under outdated laws.

Meghwal said the current reforms were part of a broader push to modernise India’s statute books. Since 2014, he noted, over 1,500 archaic laws have been repealed or amended, signalling what the government calls a decisive break from a colonial legal mindset.

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