A three-member Supreme Court bench imposed a Rs300,000 fine on a man for depriving his sisters of inheritance while rejecting his ‘frivolous petition’.
“The filing of this frivolous petition and the dishonest tactics employed by the petitioner justifies the dismissal of this petition with costs in the sum of three hundred thousand rupees, which the petitioner is directed to pay equally to the respondents who have been deprived of their legal shares,” the order said issued on Tuesday.
CJP Isa, Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, and Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan heard the case.
“The respondents will also be justified to claim mesne profits for all the days that the petitioner does not abide by the said ‘Consent/Joint Statement’,” it said.
The case pertains to the estate of Sarfraz Ahmad Khan who passed away in the year 2010, leaving behind five sons, five daughters and a widow, and his estate included a house constructed on 12 marlas and 218 square feet in the city of Rawalpindi.
When the petitioner’s sisters claimed their inheritance he agreed that the property be evaluated and had agreed to pay the legal heirs of Sarfraz Ahmad Khan their respective shares as per shariah.
The property, as agreed, was evaluated but the petitioner resiled from his own commitment, and challenged his signed ‘Consent/Joint Statement’ before the High Court.
The impugned judgment refers to said ‘Consent/Joint Statement’ and noted that, “When confronted, the learned counsel [for the petitioner] states that his client did not understand what he was signing. He, however, also conceded that his counsel was present on the occasion”.
The three-judge SC bench asked the petitioner what he does and he stated that he retired a year back from the position of assistant in the Education Department. He confirmed that he can read and write. Therefore, the ground taken by him to assail the ‘Consent/Joint Statement’ was “unjustified.”
The counsel referred to the ‘Suit for Partition, Declaration, Specific Performance and Permanent Injunction’ filed by the petitioner on 15 December 2021.
Sarfraz Ahmad Khan died about 11 years ago and when the sisters sought their share in his inheritance on October 11 2021 only then did the petitioner file the said suit two months thereafter.
“The pendency of the said suit has no effect on the estate of Sarfraz Ahmad Khan nor can exclude the legal heirs from their inheritance,” the ruling said and added that the property of a deceased Muslim vests in his legal heirs immediately upon his death.
“We have repeatedly held that the inheritance rights of the vulnerable members of society, which include females, must be protected. Unfortunately, a practice has developed whereby those defying shariah and the law, facilitated by some lawyers, adopt various nefarious means, including taking the plea of pending litigation in depriving legal heirs from what is rightfully theirs,” said the order.
