This is in response to Umar Cheema article on benami transaction.
First Law itself is never to be blamed. Be it any law, the law can be followed and can be misused with equal legal standings before the court of law.
Benami is a “certain position” that the plaintiff or defendant takes before the court, the purpose is to protect the rights of lawful owner, be it a plaintiff or a defendant.
There are certain legal situations arises in man’s life when “Benami” is used to protect the rightful claimant of the property/assets.
Let us first be clear about Benami position. the principle states that Mr “A” can purchase Property/Assets in name of Mr “B” under “given situations” with “good faith” and that he can prove with evidence that he is the hard earner of that property which he kept under else’s name.
For example Benami can be used to avoid the claim of Haq Shufa (right of neighbouring land owner comes first, but under certain situations it can be avoided, to establish a stronger position benami position is used).
2) Keeping property on relatives/family name in case the investor is working abroad but wants to have assets in home country. it can be moveable and unmovable property/assets.
3) To protect the rights of unborn child in which a father transfer’s the property to wife for the unborn child, but situation arises when they get divorced, so the property given to wife has its rightful claimant that is the father of that unborn child. (Transfer can be reverted)
4) If Mr “A” puts the property in name of his wife/mother/brother under “good faith” to have trust/love grow in the family. however, his act would never change the rightful owner of the property which is Mr A in this case.
I have done a case in which son kept his property in his mother’s name out of good faith for his family, but when his mother died, his brothers and sisters claimed that the property in her name is inherited property so they also have a share in it, so we claimed benami in this case to protect the rightful owner… so the motive to claimant/plaintiff in taking benami position should always be “good faith” and that he can prove before the court of law that the property/assets are his hard earned.
Another thing that needs to be clear is that benami is either claimed or proved. In no case of Transfer of property Act you will find the word benami. Its a claimed position not a law itself, so it can not be used in transfer of property documents.
Now there are certain situations when benami is used to hide corruption and property/assets made through illegal source of income.
Coming to the case of Imran Khan.
Imran Khan’s position is that he bought the property from Jemima’s money. his intention(good faith) was to buy a house from his own money, but he havn’t had it at that time so he decided to borrow the required money from Jemima, since the money used was from Jemima therefore, he decided its better to keep it on her name (maybe he thought he would gift her anyway or that it would be a token to his good faith towards his wife) so as soon as his flat got sale in UK, he gave back the borrowed money to Jemima.
Unfortunately they got divorced, Jemima had no intention to keep the property (as it was given to her by IK so that they can have a family life there= intention/good faith) therefore, Jemima transferred the property back to Imran Khan which he bought for themselves and kept in Jemima’s name. now using the word benami as explained earlier is either claimed or proved and can no where we find it being mentioned in transfer of property act, therefore Jemima claimed in her Affidavit that it was a benami transaction which is to say that the real owner is Imran Khan, as he paid off the borrowed money to jemima already, and that he intended to buy the property for “themselves as a family” but when they got divorced Jemima out of good faith made no false claim over the Bani gala property and wrote in affidavit that the real owner is Imran Khan and that he kept the house in my name out of good faith.
We all know that Imran Khan has no corruption charges over him, that his sources of income are not hidden from anyone, and that he can prove all his financial transactions, in fact he has already put all documents before the the public in a press conference.
The point Umar Cheema used is that “why he used benami position?”. the answer to this poor position is “why wouldn’t he to claim his rightful and lawful property/asset?”
Giving further example to explain Umer Cheem’s position, “The contract law says that contract can only take place, if the “object” in the contract is lawful, you dont argue that contact law should not be used, similarly situations where Benami position is to be claimed for rightful purposes, one cannot argue that why someone used a benami position. he/she used it cause its their right.
Imran Khan says that people who buy property in the names of their gardeners, guards, driver or any relative to hide their corruption and money earned from illegal sources shall be curbed through amendment in this regard. when he says Benami law shall be abolished, he means Transfer of property Act shall be amended. that is not to abolish the benami position but to protect those who have rightful claims and curtail those who misuse it.
We do advice everyone to buy property/assets in name of their wives/children to enjoy family life.
If anyone still has confusions regarding Benami please contact us at
Here are tweets from Jemima Khan her self
There are three questions that Umar Cheema needs to answer:
1) Is there any evidence that the transaction has breached the Law? Any illegality in the matter?
2) Is there any way that he can challenge the “good intention or good faith” of ImranKhan?
3) Is there any evidence that Imran Khan is alleged in corruption or or has hid his income from tax department?
If he cannot answer these questions, then he should be ashamed of his existence, he has accused without proof, Had our country be a law abiding, “The News” would have been shut down for good like “News of the World” in England, and Umar Cheema to his right place in the society, but since he would get away without an apology therefore all we can do is tell him that by putting false accusations he has eaten the dead meat of his dead brother (a description of false accuser in Quran)
All arguments accepted by me that the word “Benami” was entered into the affidavit (for want of mutation of the property in the name of IK) was either erroneously or with some ulterior motive of which IK was not aware of. I have only two questions:
1) A person that cannot take care of a meagre “personal” transaction and prove his inability towards responsibility, can he be capable as a “probable PM” of a country of 18 crore? I think it would be most unfortunate if such an irresponsible person becomes PM of Pakistan.
2) I also take it at face value as what one friend had quoted Jemimah saying that she purchased the property on IM behalf and when his flat in London was sold she got back the money. Fair enough! Period. But in between this, where have gone the government taxes that was to be paid due mutation of the property. IM has been slashing the word “Benami” because under this garb the huge transfer taxes and the question of source of money are camouflaged by the culprits. Did not he do the same trick (maybe by mistake but the fact now can not be changed)?