Women’s inheritance rights enshrined in Sharia, Supreme Court holds
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ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday settled a 71-year-old family dispute, ruling that inheritance is a vested Sharia (Islamic) and legal right that devolves upon all heirs, including women, immediately upon the death of the family head.
The court held that this right cannot be defeated through private arrangements, social pressure, dubious revenue entries or procedural manoeuvres.
“The right of inheritance is not a bounty to be bestowed at the pleasure of male family members, nor a concession dependent upon custom, convenience or familial goodwill,” Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan observed while setting aside the Jan 26, 2017 judgement of the Lahore High Court’s Bahawalpur bench.
The dispute arose after Roshan, the owner of the suit property, died in 1955. Inheritance Mutation No. 74 was entered on April 4, 1955 in favour of his legal heirs. On the same day, Mutation No. 75 was recorded on the basis of an alleged verbal gift purportedly made by the widow and daughters in favour of the deceased’s two sons.
Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan notes law favours protecting interest of female heirs
The petitioners maintained that no such gift had ever been made and that Mutation No. 75 was fraudulently sanctioned to deprive the female heirs of their lawful shares. After retaining possession of the property, the sons and their successors transferred it through exchange mutations and gift deeds in favour of their descendants.
The petitioners filed a suit seeking a declaration that Mutation No. 75 was illegal. The trial court dismissed the suit, while the appellate court and the LHC also upheld the decision.
Allowing the appeal, the SC declared Mutation No. 75 illegal, void and ineffective against the petitioners’ inheritance rights. It held that they were entitled to their respective shares in Roshan’s estate under the applicable law of inheritance.
The SC also directed the revenue authorities to correct the revenue record and complete the determination and separation of the heirs’ shares in accordance with the law.
Heading a two-judge bench, Justice Hassan observed that courts and revenue authorities dealing with inheritance disputes must remain mindful that the law favours protecting, rather than defeating, the inheritance rights of women. Any transaction excluding a female heir from succession, he said, must be subjected to the utmost care and judicial scrutiny.
The judgement held that once the validity of an alleged gift is challenged, the burden shifts to the beneficiaries to prove that the transaction was lawful.
The SC reiterated that the law of inheritance occupies a unique position in Islamic jurisprudence because it embodies the divine scheme for the distribution of wealth and seeks to ensure economic justice within families and society.
The judgement noted that women continue to be deprived of their lawful inheritance through fabricated gifts, manipulated revenue entries, fraudulent relinquishments, coercive family arrangements and prolonged litigation designed to wear down those asserting their rights.
Justice Hassan observed that the persistence of such disputes reflected not only a legal problem but also a societal one. The denial of inheritance rights, he said, often begins within homes and communities, where women are expected to surrender rights guaranteed by religion and law in the name of tradition, family honour or social convenience.
The judgement stressed that responsibility for protecting inheritance rights does not rest solely with the state. Families, community leaders, religious scholars, legal practitioners, revenue officials and civil society all share a collective duty to ensure that rights granted by Almighty Allah are neither diluted nor denied.
“A society that celebrates the virtues of justice while tolerating the deprivation of women from their lawful inheritance suffers from a contradiction that cannot be reconciled with either constitutional values or Islamic principles,” Justice Hassan observed, adding that the true measure of a legal system lies in the rights it protects.
Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2026 ...