ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — An heir’s right to a share of inherited property begins the moment the owner dies and does not lapse with the passage of time, the Supreme Court has ruled, in a judgment that also orders revenue officials to notify every legal heir, including women, before inherited property changes hands.
A five-member bench held that the limitation period for an inheritance claim starts only when an heir learns of a clear and open denial of their share. A court cannot presume that the clock has started, it said, unless both the denial and the heir’s knowledge of it are established.
“Time does not run against the heir, it runs against the heir’s knowledge of a wrong. The right of an heir, vested at the moment of death, never lapses with time,” Justice Shahid Waheed wrote in the judgment, which Justices Naeem Akhtar Afghan, Aqeel Abbasi, Shakeel Ahmed, and Mian Gul Hassan Aurangzeb also signed.
Six years from knowledge, not from death
The bench said that while the right itself does not expire, a suit to enforce it is still governed by the Limitation Act, 1908, which ordinary civil courts cannot set aside. In disputes among co-heirs, the six-year period under Article 120 of the act begins only when a clear denial of an heir’s ownership is brought to their knowledge.
An heir who learns that their share is being denied and does nothing for six years may lose the claim. But the period does not begin merely because an heir’s name was left out of the mutation record, and one heir’s possession of the property does not end the rights of the others. Heirs also inherit claims that their predecessor never pursued.
Orders to protect heirs
Invoking Article 187 of the Constitution, the court directed provincial and territorial revenue authorities not to process an inheritance mutation without a NADRA Family Registration Certificate or an equivalent document that lists all the legal heirs. Written notices must be sent to every heir at their address, including women, and an heir who is to receive less than a full share must have a statement recorded.
In any gift, sale, relinquishment, or settlement of inherited property, the heir concerned must appear in person, have their identity checked, and confirm that they know the size of their full share. A female revenue officer should handle such cases wherever possible, the court said.
Registration and 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 every heir first. Settlement officers in newly surveyed areas, including the merged tribal districts, must enter the names of all legal heirs in the land record.
Forged thumbprints and missing sisters
The judgment set out the ways heirs are commonly cheated: forged thumb impressions on transfer deeds, invented claims of oral gifts, affidavits that leave sisters out, women made to sign or thumbprint documents they cannot read, and whole branches of a family hidden to obtain a succession certificate.
Delays in dividing an estate fall hardest on widows, daughters, minor children, and orphans, and feed family disputes and fraud, the court said. It also recommended that parliament legislate to make the timely and accurate distribution of inherited property a legal duty.
