The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on plea of a 97-year-old man seeking to make the provisions of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 to be retrospectively applicable in cases which were filed before the Act came into force on September 1, 2008.
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A Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad posted the case for further hearing on December 13.
In the petition filed through advocate Sudarshan Rajan, the nonagenarian said he was filing the present petition for the benefit of many others who are similarly a victim of cheating and fraud by their own children.
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The nonagenarian said he was not claiming any relief against his children and that his challenge is merely to the constitutional validity of a portion of Section 23 of the Act.
Gift deeds
The petition stated that two of his sons fraudulently got gift deeds, of certain portions of his property in Lajpat Nagar here, signed by him in their favour on May 2, 2007. Although the same was done fraudulently, the nonagenarian said both the children had assured him that they would take care of him in times of his need. The senior citizen said that he was being excluded from the property rentals which were being received by his two sons.
The petition stated that after execution of the gift deed, the Centre notified the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 which came into force on September 1, 2008. “Had the Act been notified and brought into force slightly earlier, the petitioner too would have been covered under the Act,” the plea said.
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Section 23
The senior citizen submitted that he had gone to the Maintenance Tribunal for redressal of his grievances but his complaint was not entertained on the ground that Section 23 of the Act restricts the application of the Act to transfers made after the coming into force of the Act.
The plea stated that the purpose and intent of enacting the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act was to ensure that senior citizens are taken care of by their children and not deserted.
“If the children get deeds executed on the assurances that they would take care of the parent and fail to take care of the parent, then the same amounts to fraud as per Section 23 of the Act. Thus, the parent would be entitled to a declaration that the gift was void if the parent moves the Maintenance Tribunal. However, one of the conditions is that the gift should have been made after the Act came into force,” the plea said.
The plea has sought to strike down the portion in the Act which restricts its application only to those cases that came after the coming into effect of the Act to be declared as illegal, arbitrary and against the welfare of the senior citizens and parents.