The central legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation and application of Section 23(2) of the Senior Citizens Act, which empowers the Tribunal to order eviction of the occupant from the senior citizen's estate to ensure the senior citizen's maintenance and protection.

Judgment

Mr. Deepak Sibal, J.

Respondent No.3 is about 72 years old. He is the father of appellant No.1 and father-in-law of appellant No.2. Respondent No.3 filed an application before the District Magistrate, Gurugram (for short – the Magistrate) under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 (for short – the Senior Citizens Act). Through his application respondent No.3 sought the eviction of the appellants from the house that he owned.

2. In his application the grounds taken by respondent No.3 were that he was a senior citizen who had retired from the Indian Air Force; he owned the property from which he was seeking the appellants’ eviction; the appellants had made respondent No.3’s life miserable; on several occasions, the appellants had used foul language and said filthy words to him as also attempted to physically beat him; the appellants used to threaten respondent No.3 that they would throw him out from his own house; appellant No.1 is a car mechanic/technician and was using the property in question (a residential property) for commercial purposes; thus, creating nuisance in the peaceful life of respondent No.3; a complaint had been made by respondent No.3 to the police against the appellants through which he had sought protection of his life and liberty which he felt threatened at the hands of the appellants and that respondent No.3 had also got published a public notice regarding him having ousted the appellants from his life/property.

3. On being put to notice, the appellants filed a joint reply through which they did not deny that respondent No.3 was a senior citizen. However, the rest of the allegations made by respondent No.3 were denied.

4. The Magistrate through his order dated 04.08.2021 allowed respondent No.3’s application with a further direction to the appellants to vacate the house in question. The Magistrate passed his order not only after considering the rival claims but also getting the averments with regard to respondent No.1’s ownership and possession of the property in question verified by the Sub-Divisional Officer (Civil), Badshahpur and referring the contesting parties for an unsucessful mediation before the Alternative Dispute Redressal Centre, Courts Complex, Gurugram.

5. The appellants challenged the order of the Magistrate through filing of a writ petition before this Court being CWP-18313-2021 – Naresh Kumar and another vs. The District Magistrate, Gurugram and another, which was disposed of on 26.09.2023 relegating the appellants to avail of their remedy of filing an appeal. The appellants then filed an appeal but since the appeal was listed before the Magistrate who had earlier ordered the appellants’ eviction the same was held to be not maintainable. In these circumstances, the appellants again knocked the doors of this Court to challenge therein the order(s) of the Magistrate through which their eviction had been ordered.

6. Before the learned Single Judge the appellants raised the following issues:-

(i) That the property in question was un-partitioned Joint Hindu Family Coparcenary property and therefore, respondent No.3 was not entitled to maintain his application seeking the appellants’ eviction;

(ii) the appellants relied upon a family settlement under which the property in question had come to appellant No.1’s share disentitling respondent No.3 from maintaining his application filed under the Senior Citizens Act; and

(iii) that under the Senior Citizens Act there was no provision empowering the Magistrate to order eviction. Such powers had been given to the District Magistrates by the State of Haryana through the Haryana Action Plan-2015 (for short – the Action Plan) which Action Plan had been declared to be unconstitutional by a learned Single Judge of this Court through a judgment dated 23.01.2020 passed in CWP-4744-2018 titled as Simrat Randhawa vs. State of Punjab and others. Against the judgment of the learned Single Judge an intra court appeal being LPA-702-20