SC issues landmark ruling against depriving women of inheritance

A two-member bench comprising Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan and Justice Shakeel Ahmed issued a 14-page judgment while allowing the appeal

The Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan has delivered a landmark judgment safeguarding women’s inheritance rights, ordering that two sisters be granted their lawful share in ancestral property 71 years after they were deprived of it.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan and Justice Shakeel Ahmed issued a 14-page judgment while allowing the appeal filed by Noor Muhammad.

The Court set aside the judgments of the trial court, appellate court, and the High Court, all of which had upheld an alleged oral gift (hiba) that deprived the sisters of their inheritance. The revenue authorities were directed to rectify the entire land record in accordance with the law.

According to the judgment, following their father’s death in 1955, the two brothers had the inherited property transferred into their own names. They allegedly relied on an oral gift to exclude their mother and sisters from the estate. The appellants maintained that the oral gift had been approved through fraudulent means.

Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan established an important legal principle, holding that the burden of proving an oral gift lies upon the party claiming its benefit.

The judgment observed that inheritance is neither a favour nor a matter of discretion for male family members, but a legal and Islamic right. It held that inheritance rights automatically vest in the legal heirs immediately upon the death of the deceased.

The Court ruled that private agreements, family pressure, or customary practices cannot extinguish women’s inheritance rights. It further declared that any arrangement or transaction intended to deprive women of their lawful inheritance—including fraudulent gifts, fake mutations, or other deceptive practices—must be subjected to strict judicial scrutiny.

The judgment emphasized that courts must examine every transaction affecting women’s inheritance rights with the utmost care. It reaffirmed that women’s inheritance is a mandatory right granted under Islamic law and cannot be treated as symbolic or optional.

The Court observed that depriving women of inheritance is not only unlawful but also contrary to Islamic teachings and represents a serious social problem. It noted that violations of women’s inheritance rights often begin within families before reaching the courts, and that no woman can be denied her lawful share in the name of family honour, tradition, or social pressure.

The judgment further held that the State, the judiciary, and revenue authorities are collectively responsible for protecting women’s inheritance rights and ensuring that women receive their inheritance in practice rather than merely on paper. It stressed that safeguarding these rights is a shared responsibility of the entire society and that the law must always favour the protection—not the extinguishment—of women’s inheritance rights.

Addressing the issue of delay, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the claim was time-barred. The Court observed that, according to the record, the mother and sisters continued to receive a share of the income generated from the land for several years after the alleged oral gift, indicating that they had not been informed of such an arrangement.

The Court held that even if it were accepted that the appellants had knowledge of the alleged oral gift, it remained the legal obligation of those benefiting from the transaction to prove its validity.

The Supreme Court concluded that the trial court had fundamentally erred by treating the alleged oral gift itself as proof instead of properly evaluating the burden of evidence. It held that the findings of the trial court and the High Court were contrary to both the facts and the law.

Allowing the appeal, the Supreme Court declared all judgments of the subordinate courts void and directed that the appellants be given their lawful share in the inherited property in accordance with the law.