Law: Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, (IX of 1948)

Section:

(On appeal from the judgment and decree of the High Court of West Pakistan, Lahore, dated the 6th February 1957, in Regular First Appeal No. 13 of 1953).   (a) Punjab Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act (IX of 1948)-----   ----[as amended by Punjab Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) application (Amendment) Act (XI of 1951)]-Competency of eventual successors under Muslim Law to bring suits to contest alienations made by holder 9f a customary estate after promulgation of the Act.   A father sought to divide property in his hands unequally among his four sons by the device of a gift to one son inter vivos, so that the property divisible amongst them on his death, was to be reduced to that extent. The subject of the gift was the donor's one-fifth share in certain lands and ihatas. The property in question was admittedly ancestral in the hands of the donor who had inherited under custom. The other three sons of the donor sought a declaration that the gift in question would not affect their reversionary rights after the death of the donor, their father. The suit was contested by the donor and the donee on the ground that the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1948, as amended in 1951, had radically altered the situation so that the plaintiffs had no locus standi to maintain the suit. On the question, whether by necessary intendment, the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1948; or its amendment in 1951, converted a male proprietor's estate held under custom, into a full Muslim law estate or not:   Held: Prima facie, unless the conclusion follows inevitably from the language of the new enactment, there would be no reason why a person who inherited certain property under one system of law should not remain bound by the rules of that law. The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1948, as amended in 1951, does not effect a cataclysmic change in the law. Clearly an interregnum is envisaged by the Act, during which, those who succeeded to the property under custom, would be allowed to continue their old jural relations with that property which would devolve according to Muslim Law; only on the death of the…