Slowly and carefully go thru;
Punjab-Haryana High Court
Jaswinder Singh And Ors. vs Kartar Singh And Ors
29.
This Court had the occasion to examine a situation wherein one of the attesting witnesses had turned hostile in Gurdev Singh and Ors. v. Smt. Shanti, 1989 C.C.C. 40, and yet it arrived at the conclusion that merely because an attesting witness or some of them were hostile or unreliable, the Court would not declare a will invalid if on the examination of the totality of the circumstances, a contrary conclusion could be arrived at. Relevant observations made in the aforesaid judgment are being extracted hereunder:-
"In order to establish the validity of a will, it has no doubt to be proved that it was attested by at least two witnesses, but it must, at the same time also be observed that it is not the intention of the law that an attesting witness be permitted to hold the propounder of a will to ransom, as it were by treating his mere denial of attestation of the will, by itself, as negation of due execution of the will. As held by the High Court of Calcutta in Mahindra Nath Ganouli v. Durga Charan Ganauli, 1959 I.L.R.(l) Calcutta 471, where the attesting witnesses or some of them prove hostile or unreliable, the Probate Court is not powerless to declare in favour of the will and if from the other evidence on record and the circumstances taken as a whole, it is in a position to hold that the will was duly executed and attested, it will pronounce in favour of its validity.
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/611125/
GURDEV SINGH AND ONOTHER V. SHANTI AND OTHERS
https://www.casemine.com/judgement/in/5767b112e691cb22da6d2568#
Punjab-Haryana High Court
Lila Dhar vs Smt. Badho And Anr.
19. In order to establish the validity of a will, it has ,no doubt to be proved that it was attested by at least two witnesses, but it must, at the same time also be observed that it is not the intention of the law that an attesting witness be permitted to hold the propounder of a will to ransom, as it were, by treating his mere denial of attestation of the will, by itself, as negation of due execution of the Will. Where the attesting witness or some of them prove hostile or unreliable, the Court is not powerless to declare in favour of the will and if from the other evidence on record and the circumstances taken as a whole, it is in a position to hold the will was duly executed and attested, it will pronounce in favour of its validity. If any judgment is required on the point, a reference can be had to Gurdev Singh v. Smt. Shanti, 1988, S.L.J. 885.
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1286255/
You should be clear.