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Your
Advocate
This
week your advocate is M. Moazzam Husain of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.
His professional interests include civil law, criminal law and constitutional
law.
Q:
Our nephew took money from different people giving writing statements,
some in judicial stamp, some in plain paper that I am selling my portion
of land property which I am entitled to get from my father. It can be
mention here that his father died before our parents death. Our parents
are no more in this world and still their land property is unsold. Moreover,
as we neglected our parents and did not looked after them in their old
age, they asked us not to take and claim any portion of their property
after their death. More over our mother categorically told all the property
belongs to her will be owned by her youngest son, none should claim that.
But she could not make any written deed in this respect. We are five brothers.
Our parent's property is still undivided. Our questions are : A. The way
our nephew sold his expected portion of property and took money, is it
valid from the point of legal view? Can those people claim any money or
property legally? B. Since our parents declared pointblank, we would not
claim their property as their inheritor; can we get our share? C. Our
mother declared and wished her property should be owned by our youngest
brother and told it to many of our relatives, so can we claim or get her
property legally or not? D. Our youngest brother claims himself as the
sole owner of our mother's property as she wished him to be so. Please
advice each portion from the legal point of view and what should we do?
Among ourselves strain relation has arised.
Md
Kamal Ahmed, Mirpur, Dhaka.
Your
Advocate: You have asked four questions. First question is, whether
your nephew has the right and title to sell out or otherwise dispose of
the property of his grandparents he claims to have inherited through his
late father . In the peculiar circumstances it is to be seen how far or
whether at all your nephew has inherited the share of his grandparents'
property. You have said his father predeceased his grandparents. Under
the Muslim law of inheritance sons and daughters of anyone who has predeceased
his/her parents expiring before 15th July,1961, does not inherit the property
of their grandparents. That is, if your parents had died before the aforesaid
date your nephew will not inherit any property left behind by them. But
if your parents had died on or after the aforesaid date your nephew and
his brothers and sisters, if any, will inherit the entire share of their
grandparents' property which their father would have inherited, if alive.
This is the measuring road by which you can asses the validity of the
claim set up by the persons purchasing or proposing to purchase land from
your nephew or of any other claim arising out of such a deal.
The second question
is since you and your brothers did not look after your parents in their
old age and they expressly wished all their sons, with part exception
to the youngest son, not to claim their property after their death whether
you still are entitled to the property left behind by them. I wish you
were not. It is extremely sickening to any conscientious being to note
that old, helpless parents were left abandoned in their old age and virtually
had to die uncared for. This is a kind of conduct on the part of a son
or daughter which goes to their roots as human. If I had the authority
I would have deprived every such son or daughter from the property of
the parents he or she had neglected. Law is possibly not as unkind as
I am. Under the Sunni law 'a person who has caused death of another whether
intentionally, or by mistake, negligence, or accident is barred from succeeding
to the estate of that other'. In my opinion the negligence as contemplated
by law cannot be extended to mean a neglect you have indicated. So you
can feel safe in respect of your entitlement to your parents property.
Irrespective of your conduct it has already devolved upon you and your
brothers as their heirs.
The third question
is about your mother's intention to give all her property to her youngest
son. As could be gathered from your words your mother did neither make
a gift nor a will strictly in the legal sense of the terms. Her wish seems
to have ended more in grief and anguish than in legal transactions. There
is no element of gift in her actions. So far as 'will' is concerned, it
cannot be made in favour of an heir unless the other heirs consent to
the same after the death of the testator. So there is no elements of valid
will either. Therefore, you have no impediments in inheriting your mother's
property also which in fact has devolved upon you and all your brothers
equally.
The fourth question
already stands addressed along with the third. So, I hope, it needs no
separate treatment.
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