Federal Constitutional Court Introduces Robust Protections for Women’s Inheritance Rights

In Islamabad, a landmark ruling reaffirmed the inviolable inheritance rights of women, as the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) on Wednesday introduced comprehensive safeguards mandating that courts handling women’s inheritance matters exercise heightened vigilance and rigorous judicial scrutiny.

Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan, writing for the bench, held that courts, revenue authorities, and other bodies tasked with adjudicating, recognizing, or enforcing inheritance rights—especially those involving female heirs—must strictly adhere to the court’s principles when reviewing any compromise, relinquishment, family arrangement, settlement, gift, mutation, consent statement, or any other instrument that could affect, limit, or extinguish women’s inheritance rights.

The FCC panel, which also included Justice Ali Baqar Najafi, heard an appeal by Bibi Amina and overturned the June 25, 2025 decision of the Balochistan High Court that had validated a compromise agreement resulting in the effective disinheritance of two sisters.

The dispute stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the petitioners—daughters and legal heirs of the late Abdul Rehman, including Bibi Sabza—against their brothers, seeking a declaration and separate possession of their respective Sharia shares in the estate left by their deceased parents.

Courts must conduct heightened scrutiny of deals affecting female heirs, CJ rules

While the suit was pending, the parties allegedly reached a written compromise, leading the trial court to issue a judgment on June 15, 2021, pursuant to Order XXIII Rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC). Subsequently, the petitioners filed an application under Section 12(2) of the CPC, alleging that the compromise had been obtained through fraud, misrepresentation, and concealment of material facts, and that their consent was neither free nor informed.

The trial court granted the application on November 8, 2022, nullifying the compromise decree and reinstating the suit. The appellate court affirmed this ruling on August 20, 2024. Nevertheless, the Balochistan High Court overturned these findings, dismissed the petitioners’ application, and reinstated the compromise decree.

“In a society where, regrettably, female legal heirs are often deprived of their divinely ordained and legally protected inheritance rights through subtle coercion, social pressure, manipulation, and fraudulent devices, courts bear a heightened duty to scrutinize transactions affecting these rights with utmost vigilance,” the 33‑page FCC judgment stated.

“The abhorrent practice of depriving women of their inheritance, by any means, must be condemned in the strongest possible terms and eradicated with unwavering resolve,” the judgment declared.

The principles established by the FCC require courts, when adjudicating instruments affecting female heirs’ inheritance rights, to apply heightened judicial scrutiny, treating such matters as the protection of a vulnerable class.

The judgment further held that the burden rests heavily on the transaction’s beneficiary to affirmatively demonstrate, through credible and incontrovertible evidence, that the instrument represented a free, informed, and conscious act of the executant.

Likewise, courts must ensure that the record shows the executant had a clear understanding of the transaction’s nature and the precise inheritance rights being affected or relinquished.

It must also be shown that the executant had access to independent, competent, and disinterested advice sufficient to enable informed decision‑making free from undue influence.

Any transaction must be scrutinized to exclude coercion, fraud, misrepresentation, undue influence, or familial or social domination. Where consideration is alleged, courts require strict proof that it was lawful, genuine, adequate, and actually received in a verifiable manner, the judgment said.

The contents of all documents must be demonstrated to have been read, explained, and translated into a language fully understood by the executant.

The FCC further held that courts must verify that the executant was given a reasonable opportunity for reflection and consultation, free from haste or pressure.

Moreover, any transaction that appears prima facie unconscionable, one‑sided, or disproportionately prejudicial to a female heir will be subject to strict scrutiny and disapproval unless fully justified by clear evidence.

All suspicious or doubtful circumstances surrounding a transaction must be satisfactorily explained by the beneficiary; otherwise, an adverse inference will be drawn.

In all such cases, courts must record an affirmative finding of voluntariness and informed consent before upholding any deprivation of inheritance rights.

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