The Superior Court of Lahore (LHC) has ruled that the properties can be transferred through verbal gifts based on natural love, affection and personal service, adding that depriving a legal heir only was not enough to invalidate such transfers unless the malicious intention was proven. Judge Anwaar Hussain made these observations while listening to a complex inheritance dispute that involves the children of two wives of a head of the deceased property. The matter referred to real estate mutations in favor of the defendant, allegedly executed through oral gifts. The petitioners, including Muhammad Naseem, through the lawyer of the lawyer Mian Dawood, argued that such gifts, made with the intention of depriving other legal heirs, were equivalent to zarar (damage), and should be reserved in the light of the Koranic Mandates and Hadits. They were based on the previous decision of the Court in Liaqat Ali v. Shahnaz Akhtar (2025 LHC 693) to support your claim. However, Judge Hussain clarified that the application of the principles established in the Liaqat Ali case to each matter without distinguishing the facts can lead to injustice and weaken the right of an individual to get rid of the property legally during his life for genuine love and service. Abdul Qadus Rawal lawyer, presenting the defendant, supported the concurrent conclusions of the lower courts, and pointed out that specific accusations of fraud or collusion have been justified. He argued that the oral gifts were executed by natural affection, in the presence of witnesses whose statements were registered, and elaborated even more in the written statement of the respondent. Judge Hussain acknowledged that in the Liaqat Ali case, the court had argued that a gift made by a father to a single heir for hatred for other heirs, only to disinherit them, constitutes zarar and is not valid under the Islamic principles.
