Summary of this article
Bombay High Court says eviction under Senior Citizens Act needs to be accompanied with the a valid claim for maintenance.
It quashed the Tribunal’s eviction order against son for misusing the Act.
Court emphasised that the Act is meant for protection, not to settle property or inheritance disputes.
The Bombay High Court recently ruled that a senior citizen cannot evict a legal heir if there is no associate claim for maintenance. In a recent judgment, Justices R.I. Chagla and Farhan P. Dubash, clarified the scope and limitation of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, which provides senior citizens the right to maintenance and eviction of legal heir from their property, among other rights. The judges deliberated on the question of whether an eviction order can be legally issued when a senior citizen does not make any accompanying claim for maintenance.
The matter involved a senior citizen (75-year-old retired IAS officer) and his 53-year-old son (the petitioner). The court tried for an amicable resolution to the complaints but when both parties remained adamant, the court passed the order after clarifying the principle of the Act. It said that the right of senior citizens cannot be misused under the Act to settle property disputes or secure summary eviction without meeting statutory requirements of maintenance and protection.
Case Background
The conflict related to a property (a bungalow) in Mumbai which the senior citizen claimed he had purchased with his own income, and therefore, owned it. His son was living in that bungalow. The senior citizen lived separately with his wife in a flat in a different society. The senior citizen sought to evict his son from the bungalow, who exclusively occupied it. He filed the application in March 2024, seeking his son’s eviction, and recovery of money from the commercial use of the property.
The Tribunal allowed the application on August 26, 2025, and ordered the son to vacate the property within 30 days. The argument was that the father needed the bungalow due to his ailment and frequent medical travel. The Tribunal also expressly recorded that the senior citizen didn’t ask for maintenance. On October 1, 2025, this eviction order was affirmed by the Applellate Tribunal.
Arguments
The petitioner (son) contested the order, arguing that his father is financially independent and owns multiple properties, including both residential and commercial properties and earns over Rs 10 lakh per month through rental incomes. He also argued that the said property was acquired from the proceeds of the ancestral property, adding that his own partition suit filed in 2019 was also pending.
The son further asserted that he pays all the expenses related to the bungalow and that in 2013, the father gave him permission in writing to live in the said property indefinitely and conduct business without paying rent.
The father’s counsel admitted that the father has never resided in the bungalow and does not require financial support, but maintained that the property belonged to him, and accordingly asked the court to invoke the provision of his son’s removal under the Act.
Court Observation
The high court observed that despite the senior citizen filing his application under the Act’s provision, he never sought maintenance from his son. The court also noted that the purpose of the Act was to provide protection of life and property, which was not served by this specific application.
The court observed that the petitioner’s application was a “counter blast” to the petitioner’s long pending partition suit and thus the dispute could not be settled summarily under the Act. Further, it also observed that the tribunal had failed to assess whether the eviction would leave the son homeless, especially since he was unemployed and the father was wealthy.
Court Judgment
The high court then concluded that the application did not satisfy the requirement of Section 4 and 5 of the Act and was thus not maintainable. It emphasised that the eviction must be an incident of enforcing the right to maintenance and protection, and determined that the Act was improperly used. It quashed the application and set aside both the appellate order and the eviction order.
