SC restores women's inheritance rights in 71-year-old property dispute

The Supreme Court has ruled in favour of a mother and her daughters in a 71-year-old inheritance dispute, ordering that they be given their lawful share in the family property.

The 13-page judgment was authored by Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan and announced at the Supreme Court's Lahore Registry.

Setting aside the decisions of the trial court and the Lahore High Court, the Supreme Court held that the women were entitled to their inheritance, bringing an end to a legal dispute that had remained unresolved for more than seven decades.

The judgment states that protecting women's inheritance rights is not solely the responsibility of the state. It says civil society, religious scholars, revenue authorities, and legal professionals also have a duty to prevent the denial of these rights.

The court reaffirmed that inheritance is both a Shariah-based and legal right, and that depriving women of their lawful share is unconstitutional as well as contrary to Islamic principles.

The court further observed that fraudulent gifts, deception, or family pressure cannot extinguish women's inheritance rights. It stressed that the judiciary must remain vigilant in safeguarding such rights.

According to the judgment, following the death of the family patriarch in 1955, two brothers transferred the inherited property into their own names and relied on an alleged oral gift to deny the mother and sisters their rightful share.

The Supreme Court held that the rulings of the trial court, appellate court, and the High Court were inconsistent with both the facts and the law.

While the High Court had noted that the alleged oral gift remained unchallenged for decades, the Supreme Court found that official records showed the mother and sisters continued to receive a share of the land's income for several years, indicating they had been kept unaware of the purported gift arrangement.