The Bombay High Court has expressed concerns over the misuse of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act by children who were denied a share in immovable properties owned by senior citizens.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Sandeep V Marne recently observed that provisions of the Act were being used as a piece of machinery for settling property disputes between heirs of senior citizens.
Unfortunately in many cases, such a course of action was taken by the parties, noted the High Court, while directing the Tribunals under the Act to ensure that the provision was not misused by children who were denied a share in the immovable properties by seeking to get gift-deed annulled by filing an application through senior citizens.
Justice Marne passed the order on a petition challenging a Senior Citizen Tribunal order of October 2022 that nullified gift deeds executed in favour of petitioner Nitin Gupta by his father.
The petitioner claimed that his father had executed gift deeds in his favour with respect to three flats in 2019 and 2020.
In February 2022, his father applied to the Tribunal seeking return of various properties gifted by him to the petitioner and payment of maintenance of Rs 50,000 per month.
The application filed by the father contended that the petitioner got four gift deeds executed and thereafter, he ill-treated his father by removing servants and confining him to one room.
The application further stated that in 2021, the father left Mumbai to reside with his other son in Surat and that son purportedly had neither any source of income nor any property left with him.
The Tribunal declared the deed as null and void. It also directed the petitioner to vacate and hand over possession of the three flats to the father.
Gupta challenged the Tribunal order before the High Court, alleging that his father had moved the Tribunal at the behest of his sibling, the other son in Surat, who was purportedly interested in the said properties.
The High Court remarked that Section 23(1) (revocation transfer of immovable properties in certain circumstances) of the Senior Citizens Act ought not be used as a machinery for settling property disputes between the heirs of senior citizens.
It observed that the provision operated as an exception to validly effected transactions of transfer of immovable properties, which could be revoked in rare and exceptional circumstances by the Maintenance Tribunal.
Setting aside the Tribunal order, the single-judge Bench directed the petitioner to provide residence to his father in one of the flats and pay him Rs 25,000 per month as maintenance.
The petitioner was represented by Senior Advocate GS Godbole, along with Advocates Manuj Borkar and Prasad Borkar, while the orther son was represented by Advocates Ameet Mehta, Sheetal Pandya and Pratiksha Udeshi briefed by Solicis Lex. Additional government pleader Uma Palsuledesai appeared for the State.