Man fined for demanding back land gifted to wife

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has imposed Rs100,000 fine on a man for demanding return of a property he gifted to his wife.

Dismissing a petition of the man, Justice Shahid Waheed observed that it was reprehensible to drag the mother of his children and the sick wife in the courts without any cause. Muhammad Riaz, after the death of his first wife, married Fatima Bibi, who was a divorcee and mother of two daughters. In 1995 the petitioner, a resident of Mandi Bahauddin, gifted 56 kanal land to his wife. He later approached the courts after 16 years to reclaim the property.

After a civil court dismissed his petition, the petitioner filed a civil revision in the LHC against the decision of the trial court. The petitioner through a counsel contended that his wife got the property transferred in her name through fraud and conspiracy. He made the collector, tehsildar, Patwari and his wife a party in the civil revision.

Justice Waheed ruled that the petitioner could not prove the allegations of the conspiracy, fraud and collusion. He noted that the petitioner voluntarily and consciously gifted the land to his wife but the acquisition of the land 16 years after its transfer to the wife is malicious. The petitioner stated that even if the gift proved to be valid in favour of his wife, he revoked it. However, the judge in his verdict termed this highly abominable.