Home  /  Indian Succession Act  /  Section 18

Section 18: Lunatic's acquisition of new domicile

Indian Succession Act • Official Statutory Text & Practice Guide

Statutory Regulation
Legal Standard
Competent Court / Tribunal
Act 1925
Section 17 All 391 Sections of Indian Succession Act Section 19

Legal Commentary & Landmark Judgments: Section 18

Section 18 enacts that an insane person cannot acquire a new domicile in any other manner than by their domicile following the domicile of another person upon whom they are legally dependent.

  • Core Legal Standard: Section 18 deals with the legal incapacity of persons of unsound mind to acquire a domicile of choice.
  • Operational Mechanism: Just as minority imposes a statutory disability, mental incapacity deprives an individual of the cognitive faculty required to formulate the requisite animus manendi (intention of permanent settlement).

Consequently, an insane person cannot independently alter their domicile by changing their residence. Their domicile remains frozen in the domicile they possessed prior to the onset of insanity. If their insanity commenced during minority, their domicile continues to follow that of their parent or legal guardian as a dependent domicile, preventing unauthorized alterations in their estate's devolution.

Key Landmark Precedents:
  • Kedar Pandey v. Narain Bikram Sah, AIR 1966 SC 160: The Supreme Court affirmed that mental competence is an absolute statutory prerequisite for acquiring a domicile of choice, upholding the principle that an incapacitated person's domicile remains static or dependent under Section 18.
  • Surendra Pal v. Dr. Saraswati Arora, (1974) 2 SCC 600: The Supreme Court emphasized that cognitive soundness is essential to all voluntary legal acts altering succession status.
Legal Commentary:

Section 18 protects the estates of vulnerable persons with mental disabilities from predatory manipulation. Relatives or caretakers who relocate an incapacitated individual to another jurisdiction cannot claim that the individual acquired a new domicile to alter intestate distribution. The domicile remains anchored in their original pre-incapacity status.

Section 17 All 391 Sections of Indian Succession Act Section 19