Left out of will, Sikh widow wins half of 1m pounds estate in UK
Darpan News Desk IANS, 17 Feb, 2023 11:56 AM
London, Feb 17 (IANS) An 83-year-old Sikh woman, whose late husband of 66 years left her out of his will, has won a high court battle in London for a share of an estate worth more than 1 million pounds.
Karnail Singh, who died in 2021, left nothing for wife Harbans Kaur and four daughters, as he handed all of his estate to his two sons, The Guardian reported.
Justice Peel heard that Singh, who wrote in will in 2005, "wished to leave his estate solely down the male line".
Kaur, who married Singh in 1955, estimated the estate to be worth 1.9 million pounds gross but one of her sons put the value at 1.2 million pounds, the court was told.
Ruling that Kaur should get 50 per cent of the net value of the estate, the judge said that it was clear "reasonable provision" had not been made for the widow, whose income consisted of state benefits of about 12,000 pounds.
Hearing the case in London's family division of the high court, Peel said proof showed that Kaur had played a "full role" in the marriage and worked in the family's clothing business.
"After a marriage of 66 years, to which she made a full and equal contribution, and during which all the assets accrued, she is left with next to nothing," Peel said, while giving out the judgement.
"This decision is evidence that people cannot simply be cut out of wills, especially spouses which have contributed for a significant number of years," Heledd Wyn, a partner at law firm Shakespeare Martineau, said.
Nikita Ishchenko, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Kabul, was quoted as saying by RIA: "Four cars were full of money, they tried to stuff another part of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac."
Fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents can now enter Canada for non-essential purposes for the first time since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the two countries to severely curtail travel.
One person was killed and another injured during a shooting which took place in the parking lot of a store in the US state of Pennsylvania, authorities said.
Six Sikhs were killed in the August 5, 2012, attack in which four people, including a police officer, were injured and one person died last year from the wounds sustained in the shooting.
U.S.-based Novavax partnered with the Serum Institute of India to apply in the three countries, and plans later this month to also seek the World Health Organization review needed to be part of the COVAX global vaccine program.
The Biden administration has kept in place travel restrictions that have severely curtailed international trips to the U.S., citing the spread of the delta variant of the virus. Under the rules, non-U.S. residents who have been to China, the European Schengen area, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, South Africa and India in the prior 14 days are prohibited from entering the U.S.
