A will revoked by the maker's marriage: the provision the Kerala High Court has upheld

Background

The Kerala High Court has upheld the constitutional validity of Section 69 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, in a suo motu civil reference and connected proceedings decided by a Division Bench of Justice Sathish Ninan and Justice P. Krishna Kumar.
Section 69 provides that a will is revoked by the marriage of the person who made it, except a will made in exercise of a power of appointment in the circumstances specified by the provision.
Section 69 is not included in Schedule III to the Succession Act and, by virtue of Section 57, does not apply to wills made by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs or Jainas; Section 57 contains a proviso affirming that marriage shall not revoke a Hindu will or codicil.
Section 70 of the Act, which sets out how an unprivileged will or codicil may be revoked, does apply to Hindu wills through Schedule III, but the words providing for revocation by marriage are expressly omitted there.
For Hindus, intestate succession is governed by the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, while only those provisions of the Indian Succession Act mentioned in Schedule III apply to their wills.
The Court recorded that the provision was adapted from the English Wills Act, 1837, and that its object is to protect the new family created by the marriage.
The challenge was that the restriction of Section 69 to Christians, Parsis and Jews violated Part III of the Constitution, and specifically Articles 14 and 15, and that it conflicted with Section 20 of the Act; both questions were answered in the negative.
A connected original petition had also challenged the Sub Court's order making the reference under Section 113 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.