Miss AKHTAR QURESHI vs NISAR AHMED
This matter comes before the Supreme Court of Pakistan via a petition impugning an order of the High Court of Sindh which reversed an eviction order granted in favor of the petitioner on the ground of personal need. The core legal question concerns whether an unmarried female landlord can seek eviction of a tenant for her personal need to live independently, and whether courts should question her motive. The Supreme Court held that the High Court erred in reversing the eviction order, noting that an adult unmarried woman may desire independent accommodation, that Islamic tenets do not prohibit it, and that a female should not be denied what a male counterpart would be granted, invoking the principle of equal treatment. The Court granted leave to appeal to consider these questions further.
- Can an unmarried female landlord seek eviction of a tenant on the ground of personal need to live independently?
- Whether courts are justified in questioning the motive of an adult unmarried woman desiring independent accommodation?
- Does the principle of equal treatment before the law apply to prevent withholding independent accommodation rights from a female that would not be denied to a male counterpart?
- Article 25, Constitution of Pakistan 1973
ORDER
1. ' WAJIHUDDIN AHMED, J.--Impugned in this petition is an order dated r6-2-1998, passed by the High Court of Sindh in F.R.A. No,275 of 1997. In the result, the F.R.A. Was allowed and the order of eviction, passed by the Controller on the ground of personal need of the petitioner, was reversed.
2. The petitioner is an unmarried lady and wants to live separately in her own flat situated in Maymar Square, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi, the tenant-hold in these proceedings. She says that her present joint family accommodation is inconvenient and uncomfortable because of her strained relations with her sister-in-law. It is no doubt unconventional for an unmarried young lady to live separately according to the usual traits in our society, but the learned Judge in the High Court seems to have overlooked the fact that an independent accommodation is often provided in this very society to daughters proposed to be given in marriage and such may operate as an incentive for getting a proper match. This precisely has been argued by the learned counsel for the petitioner. Even otherwise, the law is to be interpreted dynamically and a move forward in the society is not to be discouraged. If the petitioner, who is grown up and unmarried, desires to live independently, something for which the tenets of Islam do not spell prohibition, is it for the Courts to question the motive? Here, the fundamental guarantee of equal treatment before law under Article 25 (suspended but open for examination) of the Constitution may also intervene and what a male counterpart in such circumstances may not be denied, should not, in all probability, be withheld from a female.
3. ' The above are questions which require consideration. Leave is granted.