The inheritor of a property and the spouse of a deceased nephew of a senior citizen is obligated to maintain the senior citizen under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007.

A very small issue; but in my view interpretatively decisive, has been thrown up in this Writ Petition: Is the wife of a deceased nephew of a senior citizen obligated, under the provisions of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, to maintain the senior citizen after the death of her husband solely because the senior citizen had, during the life time of the nephew, gifted certain properties to him with the reciprocal covenant to maintain her. The petitioner says, she is neither a “relative” of the senior citizen nor liable to maintain her and I will proceed to answer these contentions presently, after I record the most essential facts.

2. The petitioner assails Exts.P2 and P4 orders, issued by the Maintenance Tribunal and by the Appellate Tribunal respectively, constituted under the provisions of Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 (hereinafter referred to as Act for short), as per which she has been ordered to offer residence to the senior citizen-the 3rd respondent herein, in her home, which house had been earlier gifted by the 3rd respondent to the now deceased petitioner’s husband.

3. The petitioner’s foundational contentions in law, impelled to impugn the above orders, is that she is not a “relative”, statutorily obligated to take care of the senior citizen she being only the wife of the nephew of the senior citizen; however, then expressly admitting that the house she is now residing in was gifted by the 3rd respondent-senior citizen to her husband with the covenant that he will take care of her.

4. To get a grip of the controversy in this case, a few facts will first have to be seen.

5. Compendiously stated, the 3rd respondent herein, who is an unmarried senior citizen, stated to be now living in a state of penury without anyone to take care of her, approached the Maintenance Tribunal by preferring Ext.P1 application, where under she prayed that a gift deed executed by her in favour of the petitioner’s husband in the year 1992, a copy of which is appended to this Writ Petition as Ext.P5, be set aside under the ambit of S.23(1) of the Act, asserting that she has no other place to reside in and no one else to be in charge of her care.

6. The pleadings on record would show that the petitioner herein is the wife of the nephew of the 3rd respondent-senior citizen and that the latter had executed the aforementioned Ext.P5 gift deed in favour of the petitioner’s now deceased husband, with a specific covenant therein that he will take care of her during her life time. The petitioner’s husband, however, died subsequently in the year 2008, leaving the property covered by Ext.P5 as also his ancestral property, to the petitioner. The singular allegation made by the senior citizen against the petitioner is that she was thereafter, driven out by the petitioner from the house gifted by her to the petitioner’s husband and that even though she was, under the orders of the Maintenance Tribunal, taken back to the said house, she fell ill and had to be admitted to a hospital by concerned neighbours. She says that she is presently forced to live like a refugee in the house of a relative, who is under no legal or statutory duty to take care of her.

7. I notice from Ext.P2 that the Maintenance Tribunal has correctly found that the prayer to have the document set aside cannot be acceded to because, the said document has been executed by the senior citizen prior to the coming into force of the Act. The Tribunal, however, found the senior citizen to be completely helpless, being without any support financially or physically, and therefore, concluded that she is entitled to reside in the house now in the ownership and possession of the petitioner, since this house had been earlier gifted by her to her nephew, the petitioner’s now deceased husband, with a specific covenant that he will take care of her during her life time. It is this order, that has been challenged by the petitioner