An eviction application under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, must be adjudicated by the Maintenance Tribunal, not the District Magistrate, and must harmoniously balance the senior citizen's right to maintenance with the woman's right to reside in a shared household under the PWDVA.

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KULDEEP TIWARI, J. (ORAL)

1. The instant writ petition assails the order dated 19.06.2018 passed by the District Magistrate, Ambala, whereby the complaint preferred by respondent No.4 under Section 22(2) of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act of 2007”) was allowed, directing the petitioner to vacate the house in question within thirty days.

2. Concisely and compendiously, respondent No.4, who is a senior citizen and the father-in-law of the petitioner, had initially instituted an application under Sections 4 and 5 of the Act of 2007 before the Maintenance Tribunal, Naraingarh, alleging facts substantially alike to those raised in the complaint (supra). Vide order dated 23.11.2015, the Maintenance Tribunal directed the petitioner to provide food to respondent No.4 three times a day for six months in a year, and for the remaining six months, Gurmeet Singh (son of respondent No.4) was made responsible for the same. Both the petitioner and Gurmeet Singh were further directed to pay a sum of Rs. 5,000/- each per month towards the maintenance of respondent No.4, with a stipulation that non-compliance of these directions would entail their eviction from the house in question. The relevant portion of the said order is reproduced below:

“I heard both the parties properly and file has been observed. Smt. Ranjit Kaur wife of Sh. Paramjit Singh will provide food for three time to her father in law Parkash Singh, for six months in a year and after six months Gurmeet Singh son of Sh. Parkash Singh will provide food for six months. Besides it, Ranjit Kaur will reside in lower portion of the house. Parkash Singh will reside in upper portion independently and Ranjit Kaur wife of Paramjit Singh and Gurmeet Singh son of Sh. Parkash Singh will give Rs. 5,000/- each to their father for his livelihood. Otherwise, they will evicted from his houses.”

3. Aggrieved by the order dated 23.11.2015, the petitioner preferred a statutory appeal under Section 16 of the Act of 2007 before the Appellate Tribunal, Ambala, which was dismissed vide order dated 28.03.2017. The efforts of the petitioner to get these orders set aside did not pause here, as she impugned those orders before this Court by filing CWP-14659-2017. A Co-ordinate Bench of this Court, vide order dated 11.10.2017, allowed the writ petition and set aside the orders passed by the Maintenance Tribunal and the Appellate Tribunal. It was, however, observed that if respondent No.4 was not inclined to reside with the petitioner in the house allegedly owned by him, he would be at liberty to file an application under Section 22(2) of the Act of 2007 within one month. Pursuant to the said liberty, respondent No.4 filed a complaint under Section 22(2) before the District Magistrate, Ambala, which culminated in the passing of the impugned eviction order dated 19.06.2018, which is now under challenge in the present proceedings.

4. Assailing the impugned order, learned counsel for the petitioner contends that while setting aside the previous orders passed by the Maintenance Tribunal and the Appellate Tribunal, the Co-ordinate Bench categorically observed that the petitioner, being a daughter-in-law, does not fall within the definition of “relative” as contemplated under Section 2(g) of the Act of 2007. However, the District Magistrate, while passing the impugned order, failed to consider these observations.

5. It is further argued that the property in q