SHER and another vs Mst. FATIMA through L.Rs, and others
This civil petition arises from a judgment of the Lahore High Court which allowed a civil revision and recognized the rights of the widow and daughters of the last male owner to inherit their respective shares under Sharia. The core legal question involved the validity of a mutation sanctioned decades prior and whether the matter constituted a closed transaction in light of statutory provisions concerning succession. The Supreme Court held that the High Court committed no legal or factual infirmity in granting the respondents their Sharai shares, noting that the long-standing mutation could not be treated as a closed transaction pursuant to Section 2-A of Ordinance XIII of 1983. The key principle laid down is that inheritance matters governed by statutory interventions such as Section 2-A of Ordinance XIII of 1983 override historical entries that deprive legal heirs of their rightful shares under Islamic law, preventing such past transactions from remaining closed to corrective adjudication.
- Whether a mutation of property sanctioned decades prior can be treated as a closed transaction under Section 2-A of Ordinance XIII of 1983?
- Are daughters and widows entitled to their Sharai shares in the estate of the last male owner notwithstanding contrary historical mutations?
- Whether collaterals can exclude the daughters of the last male owner from inheriting their shares under Islamic law?
- Section 2-A, Ordinance XIII of 1983
' KHALIL-UR-REHMAN RAMDAY, J.--- One Muhammad was owner of some land in Chak No,466/GB Tehsil Chiniot On his death the entire land belonging to him was mutated in the name of his widow, namely Mst. Roshnai as a limited estate and when the said widow remarried in the year 1934, the said piece of land was mutated in favor of her two daughters, namely, Mst. Fatima and Mst. Fateh through Mutation No,199 dated 23-2-1935. Claiming to be the collaterals of the above-mentioned Muhammad who was the last male owner, Sher and Gama filed a suit on 31-7-1976 seeking a declaration that the said Mutation No,199 was illegal; that Mst. Fatima and Mst. Fateh daughters of the last male owner were not entitled to any share in the estate left behind by Muhammad because they had got married and that they were the ones who were thus, entitled to the whole of the said land left behind by the said Muhammad The suit was decreed by the learned trial Judge which judgment and decree was maintained by the Appellate Court which led the widow and the two daughters of the last male owner, namely Muhammad to the High Court with Civil Revision No,949 of 1985 which was allowed through the judgment being impugned before us.
2. In respect of another piece of land left behind by the said Muhammad a Mutation bearing No,127 was entered in the year, 1934 mutating the whole of the said land in favor of the collaterals of the last male owner, namely, Sher and Gama. The above-mentioned two daughters of Muhammad namely Mst. Fateh and Mst. Fatima filed a suit on 31-11-1980 claiming that the said mutation had been secured by concealment of the fact that the said Muhammad had been survived by a widow and two daughters. This suit was dismissed and same was the fate met by the appeal filed by the said daughters of Muhammad. They then approached the Lahore High Court through Civil Revision No,100 of 1991 which was also dismissed by the learned High Court. These pieces of land or this judgment rendered in Civil Revision No,100 of 1991 are, however, not the subject-matter of this petition before us bearing C.P. No,231-L of 2001.
3. Sher and his brother Gama have, however, impugned a judgment of the Lahore High Court, dated 25-10-2000 whereby Civil Revision No,949 of 1985 filed by the present respondents was allowed.
4. We have heard the learned counsel for the petitioners and have also gone through the record in the light of the submission made by him.
5. The learned Judge in Chambers had found the respondents entitled to their respective shares, under the Sharia, in the property in-question left behind by Muhammad on the ground that the Mutation No,199 was continued as such till the filing of the suit which was filed about 43 years after the sanctioning of the said mutation and that in the circumstances the matter could not be treated as a closed transaction in view of section 2-A, of the Ordinance, XIII of 1983. It was consequently found that the widow and the two daughters of Muhammad were entitled to the Sharai shares in the said piece of land belonging the Muhammad and that the remaining land was, however, to go to the collaterals in their respective shares.
6. No infirmity legal or factual, could be shown in the impugned judgment which could entitle the petitioners, who want to deprive the respondents of their Sharai shares guaranteed to them by the Allah Almighty, to the grant of leave. This petition is, therefore, dismissed. Leave refused.