KARACHI, Feb 18: Children of a predeceased son are entitled to inherit directly from their grandfather under the Ahmedi law of inheritance, a lawyer argued in the Sindh High Court on Wednesday.

Arguing in favour of two sons of an Ahmedi who died in 1978 much before his father’s death in 2005, Dr Khalid Ishtiaq said the Ahmedis were the only religious minority in Pakistan who did not have an enacted personal law, though they had their own codified rules of such law.

Chapter 3 of the rules of Ahmedi jurisprudence provided for inheritance by children of a predeceased son, he said. Even if there was no such rule, the children of predeceased sons would be entitled under Article 20 of the Constitution and Sections 29 and 40 of the Succession Act, which are applicable to non-Muslims, the lawyer submitted before Justice Mrs Qaiser Iqbal.

Objecting to the grant of a letter of administration of their grandfather’s property in favour of their paternal uncles and aunts to their exclusion, Adil Ehsan and Amar Ehsan contended that their father, Lt Mohammad Ehsan of the Pakistan Navy, died in a copter crash in 1978.

He was the eldest son of retired Brig Iqbal Ahmed, who died intestate in 2005. The other legal heirs, they alleged, obtained a succession certificate and letter of administration without mentioning their names and requested the court to recall the letter and the certificate.