Lahore: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has ruled that a husband cannot take advantage of ambiguity in a marriage contract to deprive his wife of her lawful rights, setting aside a lower court decision in a dispute over dower property and sending the case back for fresh proceedings.

In a four-page written judgement, Justice Sultan Tanvir Ahmad observed that once a nikahnama is executed, a bride cannot be deprived of the rights agreed under it and courts must determine the true intention of the parties when interpreting its terms.

The ruling came on a petition filed by a woman challenging an appellate court order that had allowed her former husband to pay Rs1.6 million instead of transferring two acres of land specified as Haq Mehr in the couple’s nikahnama.

According to court records, the parties were married in January 2015 and two acres of land were listed as dower in the marriage contract. The husband later paid Rs1.6 million, arguing that it represented the value of the land at the time of marriage. The woman contended that if the property itself could not be transferred, compensation should be based on its current market value rather than a valuation made more than a decade ago.