  Recent observations of several peculiar over- and under-luminous type Ia
supernovae infer indirect evidence for the violation of the Chandrasekhar
mass-limit by suggesting the existence of super- and sub-Chandrasekhar limiting
mass white dwarfs. In an attempt to explain these phenomena in the context of
general relativistic extensions, we study these objects in Palatini $f(R)$
gravity. We obtain the super- and sub-Chandrasekhar limiting masses as well as
the dynamical instability criteria for white dwarfs in the given gravitational
theory. We further demonstrate that the conventional positivity condition
$\partial{M}/\partial{\rho_\text{c}}>0$ with $M$ being the WD's mass with
central density $\rho_\text{c}$, is also a valid criterion for stability in
Palatini gravity.
