In a landmark ruling reinforcing women’s hereditary right to inheritance, the Supreme Court on Wednesday restored the shares of two sisters in their ancestral property, bringing to an end a 71-year legal battle.
The court held that inheritance is a vested legal and Sharia right that passes automatically to all heirs, including women, immediately upon a person’s death. It ruled this right cannot be taken away through family arrangements, social pressure, fraudulent revenue records or unproven claims of oral gifts.
The judgment also established that anyone claiming to benefit from an alleged oral gift bears the burden of proving that the gift was valid.
A two-member bench comprising Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan and Justice Shakeel Ahmad allowed the appeal, overturning concurrent rulings by the trial court, appellate court and the Lahore High Court, all of which had upheld the disputed oral gift. It also directed revenue authorities to amend the land record and restore the sisters’ lawful inheritance.
Dispute history
The case arose after the death of the parties’ father in 1955. Two brothers transferred the inherited property into their own names, claiming that their mother and sisters had orally gifted them their shares. The sisters challenged the claim, maintaining no such gift had ever been made and that the transaction had been fraudulently engineered to deprive the female heirs of their inheritance.
Rejecting the findings of the lower courts, the Supreme Court ruled that the existence of an alleged oral gift cannot simply be presumed. Instead, those relying on the gift must prove that it satisfies all legal requirements: a declaration by the donor, acceptance by the recipient and transfer of possession.
The bench held that the trial court had fundamentally erred by treating the mutation itself as proof of the transaction rather than examining whether the legal burden of proof had been discharged.
Referring to its earlier ruling in the Faqir Ali versus Sakina Bibi case, the court reiterated that where beneficiaries of an alleged gift seek to exclude female heirs from inheritance, the burden of proof rests squarely on them. The judges further rejected the argument that the sisters’ claim was barred by delay, noting the record showed the mother and daughters continued receiving income from the land for years after the purported gift. This undermined the claim that they had knowingly surrendered their rights.
The judgment also clarified that revenue mutations cannot by themselves establish ownership. “A mutation is maintained primarily for fiscal purposes, and neither creates nor extinguishes title,” the court observed, rejecting the lower courts’ reliance on the revenue entries as proof that the oral gift had occurred.
Legal and constitutional right
Beyond resolving the family dispute, the Supreme Court delivered a strong reaffirmation of women’s inheritance rights under Islamic law and the Constitution.
The bench declared that inheritance is not a favor to be granted by male relatives, nor a matter of family generosity or custom. Instead, it is a vested proprietary right that automatically devolves upon every lawful heir at the moment of death.
The court warned that women’s inheritance rights cannot be extinguished through “private arrangements, family pressure or customary practices,” adding that every transaction purportedly depriving women of inheritance, including through fabricated gifts, fraudulent mutations and sham arrangements, must be subjected to the “utmost judicial scrutiny.”
Describing the denial of inheritance as a deep-rooted social problem, the judges observed that women are often pressured within their own families to surrender rights guaranteed by both religion and law in the name of tradition, family honor or social convenience.
The court said constitutional protections leave no room for ambiguity. It cited Article 2A, which incorporates Islamic principles of justice and equality, Article 25 guaranteeing equality before the law, Articles 23 and 24 protecting property rights, Article 35 requiring protection of the family, and Article 227 mandating that all laws conform to the injunctions of Islam.
The bench stressed that safeguarding women’s inheritance is not solely the responsibility of the courts. Families, revenue authorities, legal practitioners, religious scholars and society as a whole share a collective duty to ensure women receive the inheritance to which they are legally and religiously entitled.
Setting aside all previous judgments, the Supreme Court declared the disputed mutation void and ordered the correction of the revenue record to secure the sisters’ lawful shares in the ancestral property.