Delhi high court: Children can be evicted for abuse of elderly parents

Observing that aging has become a social challenge, Delhi high court on Thursday upheld the power of the district administration to evict children from properties of ill-treated parents/senior citizens.
A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V Kameshwar Rao dismissed a petition filed by two minors against their grandparents challenging the rules framed by the AAP government for senior citizens. The court said, “We must bear in mind the objective for which Parliament enacted the Act. Because of withering of the joint family system, a large number of elderly are not being looked after by their family.”
The court pointed out that many elderly people, particularly widowed women, “are forced to spend their twilight years all alone and are exposed to emotional neglect and lack of physical and financial support.”
It found nothing amiss in the summary procedure for eviction framed by the state government that helps old parents get back their property from errant children under Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007.
Though parents can claim maintenance under CrPC, the procedure is both time consuming as well as expensive, the court said adding that’s why a need was felt to have a simple, inexpensive and speedy mechanism for parents/senior citizens to claim maintenance.
In their plea, the minor children had challenged the legal validity of a rule in the Act wherein the DM or deputy commissioner, after verifying the title deeds, could evict any person on the allegation by a senior citizen that s/he has been ill-treated and abused. They claimed that the property was part of a Hindu Undivided Family and the children or their parents couldn’t be removed by the grandparents.
The grandparents complained that they were physically assaulted and turned out of their own house by their son. They were forced to live in gurdwaras or at the mercy of their relatives.