LAHORE (Dunya News) – The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday resolved a property dispute that began before the creation of Pakistan, nullifying a trial court’s decision that had granted inheritance rights to the children of a deceased sister.
The court observed that Ghafooran Bibi never approached the court during her lifetime, and after her death, her children remained silent for 21 years. Then, suddenly in 2009, they filed a claim challenging an agreement made in 1952 — a claim which the court found to be legally inadmissible.
Justice Khalid Ishaq issued a 29-page written verdict on the appeal filed by Jamshed and others. The judgment stated that in 1945, Kareem Bakhsh owned land in the village of Brass in India. He passed away before the creation of Pakistan. His two sons and one daughter migrated to Pakistan, and the property was transferred in the name of his eldest son, Abdul Ghafoor, who also passed away around the time of independence.
According to the court decision, Abdul Ghafoor’s widow and brother had applied for land in Pakistan under the 1948 Settlement and Rehabilitation Ordinance, in exchange for the land left behind in India. As a result, in 1952, property was allotted in Kamoki, and both the widow and the brother were included in the agreement.
Ghafooran Bibi, the sister, was not mentioned in that agreement.
The decision further noted that Ghafooran Bibi lived until 1988 but never challenged this agreement. Her brother lived until 1985, and the property was distributed among his children. Ghafooran Bibi’s children filed a legal claim for the first time in 2009, which the trial court dismissed in 2013. However, the appellate court later accepted the claim and ruled in favor of the sister’s children.
The LHC overturned that ruling, stating that the court had to consider three questions: whether the delayed claim was legally admissible; whether Sharia law applied to property transferred from India; and whether excluding the sister from the 1952 agreement was legally correct.
The court held that the claim, filed after such a long delay, was not legally admissible. The 1952 agreement was governed by the Shariat Act, and by remaining silent for decades, neither the sister nor her children retained the legal right to claim the property. On this basis, the High Court accepted the appeal and nullified the trial court’s decision in favor of the sister’s children.