Ask one question before anything else, because everything turns on it. Has your sibling obtained probate or letters of administration from a court, or is he simply the family member who was there and took charge? The word "administering" covers both, and the remedies are entirely different.
If there is a court grant
Then he holds an office with statutory duties, not a family role. Under the Indian Succession Act, 1925 an executor or administrator is the legal representative of the deceased for all purposes and the property of the deceased vests in him as such, subject to a carve out for property that would have passed by survivorship where the deceased was a Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain or exempted person.
With that office comes accountability. The Act requires him, within six months from the grant or such further time as the court which made the grant appoints, to exhibit in that court an inventory containing a full and true estimate of all the property in his possession and all the credits, and also all the debts owing to him in that character. It requires him, within one year from the grant or such further time as that court allows, to exhibit an account of the estate showing the assets that have come to his hands and how they have been applied or disposed of. If he intentionally omits to comply with a requisition from the court to exhibit an inventory or account, the Act treats that as an offence, and an intentionally false inventory or account as a graver one.
That is a powerful and under used provision. It does not require you to sue him. It requires an application in the same proceeding in which the grant was made, asking the court to call for the inventory and the account.
Half the disputes I see in this area are built on an assumption. Establish whether a petition was ever filed, in which court, and whether a grant was actually issued, and obtain certified copies of the petition and the order. That single step decides which of the two routes below applies, and a demand letter written on the wrong assumption tells your sibling exactly how little you know.
Removal, where an account is not enough
The Act empowers the High Court, on an application made to it, to suspend, remove or discharge a private executor or administrator, and to provide for the succession of another person to the office and for the vesting in that successor of property belonging to the estate. That is the serious remedy and it is available where the office is being abused rather than merely performed slowly. It is a litigation and it should be a considered decision, not a first move.
If there is no grant
This is now the more common situation, because the mandatory probate requirement was removed in December 2025 and many families never approach a court at all. Our note on what the removal of the probate requirement changed explains why more estates are now being administered informally. The consequence for you is that your sibling is not an executor. He is a co-heir who has possession, and the statutory inventory and account duties do not attach to him.
What does attach is the ordinary law between co-owners. He cannot deal with more than his own undivided share, and a purchaser from him takes subject to that limit, a point our guide on whether one legal heir can sell jointly inherited property works through. Where he has been in exclusive enjoyment of the estate, the route to both a division and a reckoning is a suit for partition, which ordinarily carries a claim for accounts of the income received. Our guide on a property partition suit in India sets out how such a suit is framed and run.
What to do, in order
- Build the asset list yourself. Certified copies of title deeds from the sub-registrar, an encumbrance certificate covering the years since the death, khata and tax records, and the bank and demat statements you can obtain as an heir. The registers and indexes maintained under the Registration Act are open to inspection, and this is what they are for.
- Send a specific written demand. Not a request for information but a numbered list: which assets, what has been collected, what has been paid out, what has been sold and to whom, what rent has been received. Send it by email and by registered post. A vague letter invites a vague reply.
- Ask under what authority he is acting. Grant, power of attorney, family arrangement, or nothing. Get the answer in writing.
- Protect the assets while you negotiate. A caveat, a notice to the sub-registrar and a notice to the bank cost little and prevent the fait accompli that these disputes usually turn on.
- Then choose the remedy. An application in the grant proceedings if a grant exists, a partition suit with a prayer for accounts if it does not.
A word on tone
These matters settle far more often than they are decided, and the settlements that hold are the ones reached after both sides can see the same list of assets. Getting the account is therefore usually the whole battle. Once the numbers are on the table, the division tends to follow.