The Supreme Court of Pakistan has ruled that an heir’s right to inheritance begins immediately upon the death of the property owner and does not lapse merely because time has passed, in a landmark judgment protecting legal heirs, particularly women, from losing their rightful share.
A five-member larger bench, headed by Justice Shahid Waheed, held that the limitation period for an inheritance claim starts only when an heir learns of a clear and open denial of their ownership rights. “Time does not run against the heir, it runs against the heir’s knowledge of a wrong,” Justice Waheed wrote in the judgment, also signed by Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, Justice Aqeel Abbasi, Justice Shakeel Ahmed and Justice Mian Gul Hassan Aurangzeb.
While the right itself never lapses, proceedings to enforce it remain subject to the Limitation Act, 1908. Under Article 120, an heir who learns their share is being denied and fails to approach a court for six years may lose the claim — but a missing name in a mutation record alone does not start the limitation period, the court held.
The judgment noted that Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree the estate passes to legal heirs after funeral and burial expenses, outstanding debts and valid bequests are paid. It observed that delays in distributing inheritance particularly harm widows, daughters, minor children and orphans, and increase the risk of family disputes, fraud and unlawful deprivation of heirs.
The court also listed common frauds involving inherited property, including forging thumb impressions, fabricating claims of oral gifts, excluding sisters’ names through affidavits, taking signatures or thumb impressions from women on documents they cannot read, and concealing an entire branch of a family to obtain a succession certificate.
Invoking Article 187 of the Constitution, the court directed revenue authorities not to process inheritance mutations without a NADRA Family Registration Certificate or an equivalent document verifying all legal heirs. Written notices must go to every heir, including women, and if an heir is to receive less than their entitled share, their statement must be recorded. The heir’s personal appearance must be ensured in any gift, sale, relinquishment or settlement of inherited property, with identity verified and statement recorded, and a female revenue officer should be engaged wherever possible.
Registration authorities, development authorities, cantonment boards and cooperative housing societies were told not to transfer inherited property without a succession certificate, letters of administration or a court decree, and to notify all legal heirs in writing. Settlement officers in newly surveyed areas, including the merged tribal districts, must enter all heirs’ names in land records and notify them, while trial courts were directed to decide limitation questions in inheritance claims promptly.
The court recommended that legislatures and the Law and Justice Commission make registered documents mandatory for relinquishment or settlement of inheritance rights, add a separate Limitation Act provision for heirs’ claims, and set a final limitation period to protect bona fide purchasers. It also recommended amending Section 498-A of the Pakistan Penal Code, or adding a new provision, to make it an offence to deprive any heir, male or female, of inheritance through fraud or unlawful means, and legislation to ensure timely partition of property after inheritance mutations. Copies of the judgment were ordered to be sent to the Ministry of Law, provincial law secretaries, the Attorney General, provincial advocates general and the Advocate General of Islamabad.
