Senior Citizens Act Cannot Be Used To Defeat Woman’s Residence Rights Under DV Act: Bombay HC

Aurangabad: The Bombay High Court, Aurangabad Bench, has dismissed with exemplary costs a writ petition filed by a father-in-law seeking eviction of his daughter-in-law under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, holding that the benevolent legislation had been invoked not to secure any genuine entitlement, but as a proxy device to frustrate a residence order she had already secured under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.

Justice Ajit B. Kadethankar, dismissing the petition filed by Devba Pauladsing Girase, observed that the proceedings before the Senior Citizens authorities amounted to an “abuse of process”, since they sought, through a summary mechanism, to undo protection already granted to the daughter-in-law and her two minor daughters by a competent court under the DV Act.

The dispute traced back to matrimonial discord between the petitioner’s son and his daughter-in-law, Kavita Himmatsing Girase, which had spawned multiple rounds of litigation. In 2018, a Judicial Magistrate had partly allowed her application under Section 12 of the DV Act, granting monthly maintenance of Rs. 11,000 to her and her two minor daughters, and specifically directing that the family not evict her from the disputed house at Bijali Nagar, Shingave, or obstruct her possession without following due process of law. This order was upheld in appeal and further challenges before the High Court also failed to dislodge it.

After these setbacks, the petitioner, describing himself as a 70-year-old senior citizen with no independent income, filed an application under Sections 4 and 5 of the Act of 2007 before the Sub-Divisional Officer, Shirpur, seeking a direction that his daughter-in-law vacate the very same house so that he could take possession with police assistance. Both the Sub-Divisional Officer and, on appeal, the District Collector as Appellate Authority rejected his application, prompting the writ petition before the High Court.

Examining the petitioner’s own pleadings, the Court noted that he admittedly owned more than one property in Shirpur, and that his claim of having been forced by threats to shift to a rented premises was unsubstantiated by any document and appeared, in the Court’s words, to be “a cooked story.” The Court found that the true object of the application, evident from its prayer clause, was to obtain police-assisted eviction of the daughter-in-law and thereby circumvent the residence protection already granted to her under the DV Act order of 2018.

Relying on the Supreme Court’s ruling in S. Vanitha v. Deputy Commissioner, Bengaluru Urban District [(2021) 15 SCC 730], the Court reiterated that the Senior Citizens Act, 2007 cannot be allowed an overriding effect wherever it would defeat a woman’s right to reside in a shared household under the DV Act, and that the two special enactments must be harmoniously construed rather than permitting one to be deployed as a weapon against the other’s protections.

Holding that the petition was not bona fide and appeared to be a proxy proceeding instigated at the behest of the petitioner’s son to frustrate the claims of the daughter-in-law and her minor granddaughters, the Court found no error in the concurrent findings of the Sub-Divisional Officer and the Appellate Authority. 

The writ petition was accordingly dismissed with costs of Rs. 50,000, payable to the respondent within two months, failing which the amount was to be recovered as land revenue.

Case Title: Devba Pauladsing Girase vs. Kavita Himmatsing Girase & Ors., Writ Petition No. 11433 of 2023