'Either or Survivor' Doesn't Make the Survivor the Owner

An “either or survivor” joint account is usually set up for exactly the reason it sounds like: so that if one holder dies, the other can access the money without a court process. It does that job. What it does not do is decide who the money belongs to.

The Clause Discharges the Bank, Not the Estate

The clause operates on the bank’s side of the relationship. It authorises the bank to pay the survivor and be validly discharged of its obligation - the bank has done its job correctly and cannot later be pursued by the estate. That is a rule about the bank’s liability, not about the survivor’s entitlement.

On the ownership question, Indian courts have taken the position - in Indranarayan v. Roop Narayan among others - that the surviving account holder receives the funds accountable to the deceased’s legal heirs, unless an intention to gift the money to the survivor can actually be established. The burden of proving that intention sits on the survivor, not on the heirs contesting it. Absent that proof, the balance forms part of the deceased’s estate and devolves under their will or by intestate succession.

Spending the Balance Does Not Settle the Claim

The gap this creates is a practical one. A survivor who withdraws the balance, treats it as their own, and spends it is not thereby in the clear - the heirs’ claim runs against the money regardless of the account’s operating instructions. The convenience the clause provides at the counter is often mistaken for a settlement of the underlying question, which it never addressed.

Where the intention genuinely is that the survivor should keep the money, the account mandate is the wrong instrument to express it. A will saying so, or a documented lifetime gift, does the work that “either or survivor” is widely but wrongly assumed to have already done.

Treat the account mandate as an access instruction and nothing more. Where the intention really is that the survivor should keep the money, put it in a will or document it as a lifetime gift - the mandate has never done that work, and the burden of proving intention sits on the survivor.