The authority under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act exceeded its jurisdiction by canceling the settlement deed without proper legal grounds, as no maintenance conditions were stipulated in the transfer documents.

ORDER :

1. The case on hand demonstrates the abuse to the provisions of the benevolent Act and the overreach by the authority constituted under the Act.

2. The facts which had given rise to the above sentiment are herein below set out:

(i) The petitioners before this Court are the first wife and daughter respectively of the 3^rd respondent. They seek to challenge the order passed by the 2^nd respondent in his proceedings 29.12.2023 in Na.Ka.No.7915/2022/A1. The proceedings before the 2^nd respondent was based on a complaint made by the 3^rd respondent on 22.12.2022. In the said complaint, the third respondent/senior citizen would submit that he is a resident at Pathanayakkan Palaiyam, S.S. Coimbatore and with regard to the properties belonging to him as per the registered Partition Deed dated 27.07.1962, his legal heirs, namely the 2^nd petitioner herein and his children through the 2^nd wife, Angammal had executed a release deed dated 08.10.2014 in favour of the 3^rd respondent. The 3^rd respondent has further stated that when he was in dire need of finance, the 2^nd petitioner, under the pretext of arranging a loan got executed a Settlement Deed dated 17.08.2016 fraudulently in her favour and grabbed the property. Since the property has been fraudulently taken away and as she is not maintaining him, the 3^rd respondent requested the 2^nd respondent to conduct an enquiry and restore the property grabbed by her.

(ii) A very detailed reply had been made by the 2^nd petitioner herein wherein she had narrated the manner in which the 3^rd respondent had ignored her and her mother for over 16 years. The 2^nd petitioner would submit that she was born to the 1^st petitioner and the 3^rd respondent on 12.06.1973. Immediately, after her birth, she and her mother were taken to her mother’s house in the village and left there. Thereafter, the 3^rd respondent neither returned nor took care of either of them. The property which was described in the complaint measuring 4.15 acres is situate in Narayanapuram Village near Sendampalayam Village, where her mother was living. Her mother was cultivating the lands and maintaining the 2^nd respondent and herself.

(iii) The 2^nd petitioner would submit that her paternal uncle, one Kulanthai Gounder had influenced the petitioner’s father to obtain a loan and financial assistance from the government and had received the original documents from her father. All this happened in and around the year 1970. The petitioner’s mother continued to cultivate the lands.

(iv) While so, in the year 1980, her paternal Kulanthai Gounder came with some goondas and informed the 1^st petitioner, her mother that she should not cultivate the lands and forcibly evicted her. The petitioner and her mother thereafter had to rely upon her maternal grandparents for their maintenance. In and around the year 1976, her father had started illegally living with one Angammal, which they came to learn only later. The petitioner would submit that, on account of lack of finance, she had to discontinue her school education and at the age of 17, had to work in a medical shop at R.S.Puram. With the income earned by her, she had completed her degree course and also qualified in a beautician course. Thereafter, she had obtained a job offer in the Maldives as a Spa Training Manager where she earned a good income. Thereafter, she returned to India and took up employment as a Spa Consultant for about 16 years in Wayanad. The petitioner would submit that, out her earnings, she had purchased her jewellery and two properties. Seventeen years after being deserted by him, the 2^nd petitioner m