Tribunal for seniors can evict children from parents’ property

NEW DELHI: A Senior Citizens Maintenance Tribunal can evict a son or a daughter from the parents’ property on grounds of ill treatment and harassment, the Delhi high court has ruled.
Empowering the tribunal so that elderly abuse doesn’t go unpunished, a bench of justices Sidhharth Mridul and Deepa Sharma stressed that welfare laws require a liberal interpretation “wide enough to achieve the legislative purpose and to be responsive to some social demand in a welfare state.”

The court ordered immediate eviction of the errant sons of the petitioner father, noting that the objective for which the Maintenance & Welfare of Parents & Senior Citizens Act was brought into force was the “welfare of parents’ and senior citizens and for the protection of their life and property.”

The court said this leaves “no manner of doubt that the maintenance tribunal constituted under the Act has the power and jurisdiction to render an order of eviction.” It underlined that the law was enacted with the “resolve to provide for more effective mechanism to ensure maintenance and welfare of parents and senior citizens as recognized under the Constitution of India.”

It was clear that in the case before it, the sons had failed to show any rights to continue to occupy the property of their father against his wishes, more so when he complained of ill treatment and harassment at their hands.

Granting relief to Mohammud Aftab Khairi, the court asked the police to restore possession of the property to him and rejected the appeal filed by his sons.

In their plea, the sons argued that a maintenance tribunal had no jurisdiction to order their eviction. The sons also claimed that the tribunal, at best, is an administrative forum and doesn’t have any judicial power.

In his complaint to the tribunal, the father Khairi had said that he owned a property in Hauz Khasi and shared the building with his three sons. The father alleged that despite spending a huge sum of money on renovation of the property and providing separate residential accommodation to his sons, the latter refused to pay him a monthly maintenance for his upkeep and treatment of his ailing wife.

To add insult to injury, the father told court, that one of his daughters-in-law filed a criminal complaint of outraging her modesty against him. Unable to bear the humiliation any further, the father decided to approach the Senior Citizens Maintenance Tribunal.