ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has ruled that under Surah An-Nisa (11) and settled Hanafi law in Pakistan, a sole surviving daughter is entitled to one-half of her deceased father’s estate as her Quranic share (faraidh).
A two-member bench of the apex court, comprising Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Justice Irfan Saadat Khan, issued judgement in a case regarding property ownership titled Ms Ameer Begum and others versus Rahima Khatoon and others.
Petitioners Ms Ameer Begum and others had filed an appeal in the apex court against the judgement passed by the Balochistan High Court, dated May 7, 2024, whereby the appeal filed by the petitioners was dismissed and the judgement and decree of the trial court in Civil Suit No133/2007 dated November 11, 2017, was upheld.
The Supreme Court, after hearing the parties, dismissed the petitions with the ruling that it did not find any illegality or irregularity so as to warrant interference with the findings of the two courts.
“It stands undisputed on the record that late Mitha Khan was owner of the properties described in paragraphs 3 and 4 of the plaint. Upon his demise in 1938, he was survived only by his daughter, Ms Lal Khatoon,” said the nine-page judgement, authored by Justice Irfan Saadat.
The court held that under the express injunction of Islam contained in Surah An-Nisa (verse 11) of the Holy Quran, as recognised under the settled Hanafi law governing the succession of Sunni Muslims in Pakistan, a sole surviving daughter is entitled to one-half of her deceased father’s leftover estate as her Quranic share (faraidh).
Respondents No 1 and 2 filed a civil suit seeking declaration, possession, cancellation of mutation entries, mesne profits, and injunction, claiming they were the legal heirs of Mitha Khan through his daughter Lal Khatoon and granddaughter Ms Ayesha Bibi.
They alleged that their father, Abdul Razzaq Khan, fraudulently transferred the inherited property into his own name and later to his son from his second marriage, depriving them of their lawful inheritance.
The trial court decreed the suit in their favour on November 11, 2017, and the high court dismissed the defendants’ appeal under Section 96 CPC. The petitioners then filed the present petition before the Supreme Court.
The court noted that the counsel for the petitioners argued that the lower courts wrongly treated the property as exclusively belonging to late Mitha Khan, whereas he owned only a share. They contended that, under Islamic inheritance law, Abdul Razzaq Khan’s legal heirs are entitled to inherit his share and that the mutation entries in their names establish their ownership. They further claimed that the lower courts ignored key facts, making their judgements liable to be set aside.
Similarly, the court noted that respondents’ counsel, Ghulam Mustafa Buzdar, opposed the petition, emphasising that both lower courts had given concurrent findings in the respondents’ favour. He argued that Abdul Razzaq Khan had fraudulently transferred the property into his and Wahid Bakhsh’s names, that mutation entries do not confer title, and that the alleged agreement dated October 30, 1968, was never legally proved.
The court noted that the high court, while examining the matter, reproduced the cross-examinations and referred extensively to the depositions of the PWs, from where it is evident that late Mitha Khan was survived solely by his daughter, Ms Lal Khatoon. While Abdul Razzaq Khan and Wahid Bakhsh fraudulently posed themselves as legal heirs of the said late Mitha Khan to illegally mutate the property into their names, this fraudulent mutation was not within the knowledge of Ms Ayesha Bibi.
“When it finally came to her knowledge, the respondents rightly approached the court of law for the cancellation of those mutation entries,” said the judgement, adding that the question of limitation raised by the petitioners is entirely misplaced.
According to the judgement, it has further come on record that Abdul Razzaq Khan and Wahid Bakhsh failed to establish any blood relationship with late Mitha Khan while their claim rested primarily on either an unproduced court’s decision or a purported contract dated October 31, 1968, on oath, which they failed to prove through any cogent material.
“Astonishingly, one of the grounds asserted for claiming the property exclusively in their names is a purported custom that suppresses the inheritance rights of womenfolk,” said the judgement.
“First, the petitioners failed to prove the existence of any such customary law and second, any such custom is directly antithetical to Islamic Sharia and the Islamic law of inheritance, which explicitly mandates and guarantees the inheritance rights of women,” it further said.
The court held that even any Jirga decision on this aspect is patently illegal, as a Jirga cannot divest a legal heir of the rights enshrined under the Quran and Sunnah, adding that any Jirga proceeding held in derogation of the Holy Quran and the Sunnah in our view is void ab initio.
“We, therefore, are not persuaded that the impugned judgements suffer from any legal infirmity, error except the actual determination of the rights of inheritance of the respondents No.1 and 2, as explained in para-12 above, warranting interference under Article 185(3) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973,” said the judgement.
“The trial court shall reframe the decree sheet accordingly. Consequently, with the above modification in the impugned judgements and decrees, this petition is dismissed and leave to appeal is refused and no order as to costs,” the apex court judgement concluded.
