Lucknow: A new draft proposal from the social welfare department could allow senior citizens of Uttar Pradesh to kick out their children from their property with police assistance if they are “unhappy with their children”. However, the proposal needs the cabinet’s approval to become a law.
The proposal is based on the amendments suggested by the UP State Law Commission (UPSLC) to the state rules of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007. This Act requires children or relatives to “maintain a senior citizen”, with their “obligation” extending to the “needs of such citizens so that they may lead a normal life”.
The state governments have the authority to make rules and form tribunals to implement the Act. Uttar Pradesh made its rules in 2014.
In April 2021, the UPSLC recommended changing rule number 22 of the Act, which gives the district magistrate (DM) the power to appoint an officer, subordinate to him, to carry out the duties and powers of the Act.
The commission had then suggested that if children/relatives neglect their parents or want to evict them from the property, the parents can apply to the local DM — the head of the tribunal in that district — for their eviction from the property.
The social welfare department prepared a draft proposal based on these recommendations and presented it to the cabinet several times, the last time being two months ago.
Asim Arun, minister (independent charge), UP social welfare department, told ThePrint Wednesday that the rules mention that if parents are unhappy with their children, they can evict them from the property after giving an application to the local DM.
“However, there was a lacuna that, while a Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) could evict such children from the parents’ property, there was no mention about who would enforce the direction. Now, the amendment will give the local administration power to ask the local police to evict such children/relatives from their properties,” Arun explained.
Notably, when the draft proposal was tabled before the cabinet two months ago, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had asked the department to work out a solution for conditions where the parents and children live on ancestral property.
“The solutions are being worked out and the proposal will be tabled again before the cabinet three weeks from now,” Arun told ThePrint.
When asked about the conditions in which local authorities will be given the power to evict children/relatives from their parents’ house, Dr Hari Om, Principal Secretary of the department, said that parents will be able to do that even if they are unhappy with the children, and not merely if they deny livelihood to them.
“It is a proposal, which has to be approved by the cabinet,” he told ThePrint Wednesday.
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What about ancestral property?
The social welfare department’s proposal is based on the recommendation of the UPSLC, that if children/relatives fail to maintain their parents or the parents are unhappy with them, the parents can cancel the sale deed or gift deed by which they transferred the property to the children/relatives, and apply for their eviction from the property without going to the civil court.
Speaking to ThePrint Thursday, former chairman of the UPSLC, Aditya Nath Mittal, under whose chairmanship the recommendations were submitted to the state government in April 2021, said that the main motive behind the recommendation was to ensure care and maintenance of the parents by children/relatives.
“It had been noticed that the children/relatives would either not maintain their parents or mistreat them in many cases,” he said.
Citing an example, he explained that in some cases, the parents would be lodged in a garage or would be sent to an old age home.
“Our recommendations were based on the Delhi High Court’s November 2018 ruling that the transfer of property by parents to children/relatives can be canceled if the latter don’t take care of them,” he added.
“The UPSLC recommendations suggested that in cases where parents have transferred their property by gift deed or sale deed to children without much thought and they are not being maintained by their children or are unhappy with them, the parents can cancel the transfer simply by giving an application to the tribunal headed by the local DM and may not have to move a civil court,” Mittal highlighted.
This was because, he explained, that approaching the civil court would involve money, and parents are usually unable to afford it in old age. “In such a case, the parents will not have to pay court fees and other legal expenses.”
According to Mittal, in previous cabinet meetings, the department was asked to work out provisions for conditions of ancestral property, which is passed on to children by grandparents and is not the self-earned property of a parent.
“Grandchildren have statutory rights over a property passed on to them from their grandparents. Because such a property is not the self-earned property of a parent, it will be covered under the Indian Succession Act, 1925, Hindu Succession Act, 1956, and Revenue Act,” he said.
But what happens when a parent is unhappy for different reasons?
While hearing a petition of a man from Sultanpur, whose mother had filed an application for his family’s eviction from a house in August this year, the Allahabad High Court had noted that in that case, the mother was unhappy because the man had entered into an inter-caste marital alliance, but the DM had directed that the petitioner be evicted from the house and the shop.
The court had noted that, while the petitioner resided in only one room with his wife and the shop was his only source of livelihood, the rest of the house had been occupied by his mother, who had been staying with the petitioner’s married sisters in the house.
It noted that the mother would get Rs 26,500 per month as rent from the shops. The petitioner was also asked to pay Rs 4,000 per month to her as maintenance awarded by a family court in favour of his parents.
Talking about situations like these, Mittal explained that conditions where the parents may simply be unhappy with their children/relatives for reasons like inter-caste marriage, etc., were not touched upon by the commission.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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