Lahore High Court Resolves 16-Year-Old Inheritance Dispute Between Brother and Sister

Lahore: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has settled a 16-year-old inheritance dispute between a brother and sister by rejecting the brother’s claim of acquiring the entire ancestral property through an alleged oral gift and upholding the sister’s right to her lawful share.

Justice Rassal Hassan Syed issued a nine-page written judgment while dismissing an appeal filed by Muhammad Riaz, thereby affirming the sessions court’s decision to grant the sister her share in the inherited property.

According to the judgment, the petitioner claimed that his father had orally gifted him the entire property in 2009. However, the court observed that the petitioner failed to produce any credible evidence to substantiate the alleged oral gift. As the beneficiary of the claimed gift, it was the petitioner’s responsibility to prove when, where, and in whose presence the gift was made, which he could not do.

The court noted that the petitioner did not present any document bearing the deceased father’s signature or thumb impression to support his claim. The judgment stated that the brother attempted to deprive his sister of her lawful inheritance rights through an unproven oral gift.

Addressing the objection regarding delay in filing the claim, the court ruled that inheritance rights cannot be dismissed merely on the grounds of limitation. It clarified that in inheritance matters, the limitation period begins from the date when the legal heir’s right is explicitly denied.

The judgment further revealed that the parties owned inherited property in Sargodha, which was transferred to both the brother and sister after their father’s death in 2009. The petitioner continued to give the sister her share of income from the property for one year. However, when the sister later demanded partition of the inheritance, it emerged that the brother had fraudulently transferred the entire property into his own name.

The sister maintained that no gift was ever made and that neither she nor her father had discussed any such arrangement. She subsequently filed a suit in a civil court seeking her share in the inherited property. In 2022, the civil court dismissed her claim by accepting the brother’s gift plea, prompting her to file an appeal before the sessions court.

On November 11, 2022, the sessions court overturned the civil court’s decision and ordered that the sister be granted her rightful share. Muhammad Riaz then challenged this ruling before the Lahore High Court.

In its final ruling, the LHC declared the sessions court’s decision lawful and correct, and dismissed the petitioner’s appeal on merit, conclusively ending the long-standing inheritance dispute.