Muhammad Ayub Khan and another V. Secretary, Board of Directors Hashim Khan Trust, Quetta and others,
YLR 2014 553 · Balochistan High Court
This case involved a dispute over inheritance rights to land in Quetta originally belonging to Baz Muhammad Khan, who died in 1911. He left three sons and two daughters, but when the property was officially recorded in government revenue records, only the sons were listed as owners, excluding the daughters entirely. Decades later, descendants of one excluded daughter, Bibi Saeeda, sued for a court declaration recognizing their inheritance rights, seeking cancellation of the mutation entries, invalidation of a trust created in 1990 that they claimed was used to cut them out, and financial compensation. The trial court dismissed their suit, apparently on grounds that too much time had passed.
The Balochistan High Court reversed this decision. It held that inheritance rights vest automatically in legal heirs the moment a person dies, and mere passage of time does not extinguish that right. Entries in revenue records are only presumptive evidence of ownership, not actual proof of title, and can be challenged once a person becomes aware their rights were denied. The clock for filing a lawsuit starts running only when someone's inheritance claim is actually refused, not from when the original record entry was made. Since the daughters' descendants had been wrongly excluded, their claim was valid and not time-barred. The court sent the case back to the trial court for proper determination of shares, after adding the provincial government as a party. This case matters because it reinforces that inheritance rights, especially of women who are often historically excluded from land records, cannot be defeated simply by delay or bureaucratic omission.
یہ مقدمہ کوئٹہ میں واقع اس زمین کی وراثت کے حقوق سے متعلق تنازع پر مبنی ہے جو اصل میں باز محمد خان کی ملکیت تھی، جن کا انتقال 1911 میں ہوا۔ ان کے پسماندگان میں تین بیٹے اور دو بیٹیاں شامل تھیں، مگر جب یہ جائیداد سرکاری ریونیو ریکارڈ میں درج کی گئی تو صرف بیٹوں کا نام بطور مالک درج کیا گیا، جبکہ بیٹیوں کو مکمل طور پر نظرانداز کر دیا گیا۔ کئی دہائیوں بعد، ایک محروم بیٹی، بی بی سعیدہ، کی اولاد نے عدالت میں دعویٰ دائر کیا جس میں ان کے وراثتی حقوق کو تسلیم کیے جانے کا اعلامیہ مانگا گیا، انتقالات کے اندراجات کو منسوخ کرنے، 1990 میں قائم کیے گئے اس ٹرسٹ کو کالعدم قرار دینے کی استدعا کی گئی جس کے بارے میں ان کا موقف تھا کہ اسے ان کے حقوق ختم کرنے کے لیے استعمال کیا گیا، اور مالی معاوضے کا مطالبہ بھی کیا گیا۔ ٹرائل کورٹ نے، بظاہر اس بنیاد پر کہ کافی وقت گزر چکا ہے، ان کا دعویٰ خارج کر دیا۔
بلوچستان ہائی کورٹ