NEW DELHI: Emphasising need to protect interests of senior citizens, many of whom are ignored by their children and left to fend for themselves once they hand over property by executing a gift deed, Supreme Court held that such deeds signed by parents could be quashed under Maintenance and Welfare of the Parents and Senior Citizens Act if the children fail to take care of them. The transfer of property would be declared null and void, court said.
A bench of Justices C T Ravikumar and Sanjay Karol said the Act is a beneficial legislation meant to lend a helping hand to elders who are left alone due to withering of joint family system and that its provisions should be interpreted liberally, and not in the strict sense, to protect their rights.
It set aside a Madhya Pradesh HC verdict which held that gift deeds cannot be quashed on grounds of not serving parents if such conditions were not expressly mentioned in the deed. SC said HC took a ‘strict view’ of the legislation when a liberal view was needed to be taken to fulfil purpose of the law.
Section 23 of the Act says, “Where any senior citizen who, after the commencement of this Act, has transferred by way of gift or otherwise, his property, subject to the condition that the transferee shall provide basic amenities and basic physical needs to the transferor and if such transferee refuses or fails to provide such amenities and physical needs, the said transfer of property shall be deemed to have been made by fraud or coercion or under undue influence and shall at the option of the transferor be declared void by the tribunal.”
Referring to this, HC had held that a gift deed should have a clause to the effect to bind children to take care of parents, and the deed cannot be quashed in absence of it. But SC overruled the verdict.
The court allowed a woman’s plea for quashing the gift deed in favour of her son who refused to take care of her. It relied on “avachan patra/promissory note” executed by her son promising to take care of her till the end of her life and that if he does not do so, she will be at liberty to take back the deed. The note was executed on the same day of execution of the gift deed.
“The Act is a beneficial piece of legislation, aimed at securing rights of senior citizens, in view of the challenges faced by them. It is in this backdrop that the Act must be interpreted and a construction that advances remedies of the Act must be adopted,” SC said.
