PESHAWAR: Anti-harassment ombudsperson of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Rukhshanda Naz has suspended the proceedings of a civil court in a property case under the KP Enforcement of Women’s Property Rights Act, 2019.

The development comes on the complaint of Khadija, who claimed that she was deprived of inherited property by her brothers.

Counsel for the woman Saifullah Muhib Kakakhel and Zeenat Muhib Kakakhel told the ombudsperson that their client’s case about the denial of inherited property had been pending with the civil court of Peshawar for a long time due to procedural issues.

They said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Enforcement of Women’s Property Rights Act, 2019, was enacted to hear property disputes of women and give expeditious justice to them by eliminating technicalities of general property disputes, which could take generations to decide.

The lawyers argued that the law was a special law on the subject and when a special law was enacted, the general law gave way to it to fulfil the purpose of that legislation and therefore, the proceedings of the civil court on the matter should be suspended in order to give way to that special law to prevail and serve its purpose.

They contended that under Section 7 of the Act, where proceedings in a court of law were pending in relation to the ownership or possession of any property claimed to be owned by a woman, she could file a complaint with the ombudsperson.

The ombudsperson suspended the proceedings of the civil court of Peshawar on the matter and ordered its implementation. She observed that all institutions concerned were bound by sections 10 and 12 of the KP Enforcement of Women’s Property Rights Act, 2019, to act on her order.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2020