MUMBAI, Nov. 8 -- Thirty-six years after a Malabar Hill woman passed away, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted probate to her will of 1989 in which she had bequeathed her wealth to her London-based daughter while leaving the son she lived with out of it. Under the Indian Succession Act, probate is the court's seal of approval on a will that makes it valid and enforceable. The court rejected the son's argument that his sister had influenced his mother's decision with expensive gifts. "It would be too much to hold that the mother would be influenced by these gifts to the extent of giving her daughter the entire property to the exclusion of her only son and his family," a division bench of Justices Sarang Kotwal and Ranjitsinha Bhonsale observed while overruling a 2010 decision of the single judge who had rejected the validity of the will in which the daughter was the main beneficiary. The judges said that the main reason that had weighed on the single judge's decision was that the daughter showered her mother with expensive gifts, took her on a pilgrimage, and helped her procure a passport to visit her in London. "We do not see anything unnatural in the conduct of the plaintiff (daughter). She was residing in the UK and was financially well-off. Therefore, when she came back to Mumbai, naturally she would bring some gifts for her mother," the judges said. The Bombay High Court was hearing an appeal filed by the daughter, Meena, seeking probate of her mother Shantaben Patel's 1989 will, which bequeathed her a 50% stake in family firm AP Patel & Company. Shantaben's son, Prithviraj, contested the will before his legal heirs took over. Prithviraj's counsel argued the will was suspicious for excluding him and his children despite sharing a flat. However, the court ruled the exclusion natural and valid, noting Shantaben's stated reason: her son's family had already inherited sufficient wealth under her late husband's will....