The term 'relative' under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 includes daughter-in-law, allowing her to appeal against Tribunal orders.

ORDER :

1. Heard Mr. N.B. Kalwaghe, learned Counsel for the Petitioners, Mr. R.D. Dharmadhikari, learned Counsel for the Respondent No. 1, Mr. A.M. Jaltare, learned Counsel for the Respondent No. 2, Ms. M.H. Deshmukh, learned AGP for the Respondent No. 3.

2. The question that falls for consideration is, whether the daughter-in-law can file appeal under section 16 of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 (for short, 'the Act of 2007') against the order passed by the Tribunal constituted in terms of Section 7 of the Act of 2007.

3. The Petitioner No. 1 is daughter of Petitioner No. 2 and Respondent No. 2. The Petitioner No. 2 is daughter-in-law of Respondent No. 1. In other words, Petitioner No. 1 is grand-daughter of Respondent No. 1. She will be hereinafter referred to as 'grand-daughter', Petitioner No. 2 as 'daughter-in-law', Respondent No. 1 as 'mother' and Respondent No. 2 as 'son'.

4. The Tribunal has, by the impugned order directed sonand daughter-in-law to pay maintenance at Rs.10,000/- per month to the mother. The Tribunal has further directed daughter-in-law and the son to vacate the disputed premises.

5. There is no dispute that son has taken responsibility of payment of maintenance. The grievance of daughter-in-law is that the Tribunal has committed error in directing her to vacate the premises.

6. The Respondents have raised objection as regards maintainability of the Petition. According to the Respondents, the Act of 2007 provides for appeal under Section 16 against the order passed by the Tribunal.

7. The learned Counsel for the Petitioners, however, submits by referring to Section 16 of the Act of 2007 that the daughter-in-law, in the life-time of her husband, cannot file appeal because she is not covered in the definition of “relative”. Section 2(g) of the Act of 2007 defines “relative” to mean any legal heir of the childless senior citizen, who is not a minor and is in possession of or would inherit his property after his death.

8. The learned Counsel for Respondent No. 2 has invited my attention to the Judgment passed by Punjab and Haryana High Court in the case of Paramjit Kumar Saroya v. The Union of India and Anr. AIR 2014 Punjab and Haryana 121, wherein while dealing with scope of Section 16, the Division Bench of Punjab and Haryana High Court has noted in paragraph 12 as under:

“12. The second anomaly which is one of the legal questions to be examined in the present case arises from Section 16 as it is the appeal provision. It, however, specifically incorporates an appeal by “any senior citizen or a parent”. Was the intention to shut out an appeal by the other aggrieved party? If it is so, could there be a situation where there are two parties both aggrieved from the same order, one preferring an appeal and other taking recourse to the supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court. The proviso to sub-section (1) of Section 16 of the said Act mandates that on appeal the children or relative has to pay the amount as determined by the Tribunal during the pendency of the appeal. This would naturally refer to a situation where appeal is by the children or the relative as there can be no question of an appeal filed by the senior citizen or parent qua stoppage of the amount. This also seems to lend credence possibly to an intent not being correctly reflected in the exact wordings. We are observing this here only for purposes of pointing out the requirement of fine tuning and will deal with the aspect of construction of this provision later on.”

The Division Bench thereafter has considered the law of interpretation and held thus:

“31. Now coming to the conspectus of the discussion aforesaid, we have no doubt in our mind that we would be faced with the serious consequences of quashing such a provision which deprives the right of one party to the appeal remedy, while conferring it on the other especially in the context of the other provisions of the same Section as well as of the said Act. We have