JUDGMENT: 

SACHIN S. DESHMUKH, J.

1. Heard. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. By consent of the parties. Petition is decided finally at admission stage.

2. The Petitioner assails the order dated 23/09/2025 rendered by the Appellate Officer, Senior Citizens Welfare Tribunal and District Magistrate Sangli in Appeal bearing No. Jeshtha Nagrik Appeal/SR-01/2025 dismissing the appeal presented by the Petitioner and endorsing the order passed by presiding Officer, Senior Citizen Welfare Tribunal in Application bearing No. MAG/J.Na./SR/20/2022.

3. The litigating parties are deeply interconnected yet stand as two opposing sides. The Respondent is the aged mother of the Petitioner, and the dispute pertains to the estate left behind by the Petitioner’s father who passed away on 02-06-2007. The subject matter involves several properties, including Revision Survey No. 159 situated in Kupwad and various City Survey numbers in Sangli, which the Petitioner claims to be a combination of ancestral and self-acquired assets. Following the demise of the father, the Petitioner’s two sisters executed a registered relinquishment deed in 2013, which was followed by the Respondent-mother executing the registered relinquishment deeds in favour of the Petitioner respectively in the year 2015 and 2018.

4. Subsequently, the Petitioner transferred a portion of the suit property in favour of his wife, purportedly in compliance with a maintenance decree passed by the Family Court, Sangli, in 2020. During this period, the Respondent initiated Special Civil Suit No. 1056/2020 before the Civil Judge, Senior Division, Sangli, seeking the cancellation of the relinquishment deeds on the grounds of fraud. Simultaneously, the Respondent filed an application under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, before the Welfare Tribunal seeking maintenance and the setting aside of the subject deeds.

5. The Welfare Tribunal allowed the Respondent’s application, resulting in the cancellation of the registered relinquishment deeds and a direction to the Petitioner to pay a monthly maintenance of Rs. 10,000. The Petitioner challenged this decision before the Appellate Officer and District Magistrate, Sangli, after hearing litigating sides, dismissed the appeal and upheld the findings of the lower Tribunal. As such, the Petitioner is before this Court.

6. Learned counsel for the Petitioner Mr. Bhavake, submits that the impugned orders are legally unsustainable as the Senior Citizens Welfare Tribunal in absence of the jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the validity of the relinquishment deeds while Special Civil Suit No. 1056 of 2020 was already pending before a competent Civil Court for the same relief. He contends that the relinquishment deeds of 2015 and 2018 were executed voluntarily without any express stipulation/condition of maintenance, and therefore, the summary powers under Section 23 of the 2007 Act could not have been invoked to void registered instruments. Furthermore, it is argued that the Tribunal failed to consider that a portion of the property had already been transferred to a third party, the Petitioner's wife, under a Family Court decree, and gloss cannot be created on such rights in a summary proceeding. Counsel further asserts that the Petitioner has consistently cared for the Respondent and that the direction to pay monthly maintenance of Rs. 10,000/- is arbitrary, excessive, and was passed without a proper inquiry into the Petitioner's financial means or the Respondent's actual requirements.

7. Learned Counsel for the Petitioner further submits that in absence of specific conditions in the gift deed for providing maintenance to the mother-transferor, the deed could not have been revoked. To buttress the same, has placed reliance upon the Sudesh Chhikara Vs. Ramti Devi and Anr., 2022 SCC Online SC 1684 and Veena Singh Vs. District Registrar/Additional Collector and anr., (2022) 7 SCC 1. 

8. Per contra, Mr. Chavan, learned counsel for