The Madras High Court has said in an important judgment that if an elderly person has gifted his property to a daughter -in -law or relative or someone who has registered it as an agreement and does not take care of him later, the senior citizen can cancel those documents at any time. The court has also clarified that the documents can be canceled even if it is not clearly mentioned in the documents.
Justice SM Subramaniam and K. Rajasekhar’s bench recently departed S.K. Nagalakshmi’s daughter -in -law S. The appeal filed by Mala was rejected. In fact, Nagalakshmi signed the agreement documents in favor of her son Keshavan, with the hope that she and her daughter -in -law S Mala would take care of her during her lifetime. But this could not happen. After the death of his son, Nagalakshmi’s daughter -in -law Mala stopped taking care of her. He then approached the Revenue Development Officer (RDO) of Nagapattinam.
What does the Senior Citizen Maintenance and Welfare Act say?
The RDO then investigated the case and quashed Nagalakshmi’s property transfer, which Mala filed a petition in the High Court, but the single bench dismissed her plea. Now the current appeal has been filed in the Division Bench against that decision. His lawyer argued that he had not promised to give alimony in the documents of the agreement. Hearing this, the bench said that Section 23 (1) of the Maintenance and Welfare Act, 2007 of parents and senior citizens has been designed to provide security to senior citizens in a situation where they transfer their property via gift or contract and expect the transfer to take care of them and provide them with basic facilities.
The bench said that if the transferred fails to fulfill these obligations, the senior citizen has the option to receive the announcement from the tribunal to cancel the transfer. The bench said that it is true that the transfer of such property from senior citizens, especially children or close relatives, is often inspired by love and affection. The bench said that the decision to transfer property by a senior citizen is not just a legal action, but it is taken with expectation of care in their old age. This becomes an underlying condition of love and affection transactions, even if it is not clearly mentioned in transfer documents.
The bench said that if the transferred person does not take care of the elderly as promised, the senior citizen can cancel the transfer using Section 23 (1). The court further stated that the facts established in the case before the RDO under the Senior Citizen Act show that the elderly woman was 87 in relevant times and was completely neglected by her daughter -in -law. Nagalakshmi later passed away.
