Bombay HC asks daughter to vacate house after elderly mother alleges torture – The Hindu

A daughter finally gave an undertaking to vacate her 70-year-old mother’s house after the woman approached the Bombay High Court, alleging physical and mental harassment.

A Division Bench of Justices S.J. Kathawalla and N.R. Borkar was on June 19 hearing a plea by the septuagenarian, an ex-government employee and mother of five daughters. She alleged that one of her daughters tortured her mentally and physically.

The Bench said prima facie “we gathered an impression that the mother seriously apprehended physical and mental harassment and consequent threats to her life, at the hands of her daughter if she resided in her own flat at Kandivali (East)” without the daughter being evicted from there.

The HC referred to the story of Shravan Kumar from Ramayana, and said, “It is unfortunate that in the last several years, courts have witnessed old parents knocking at their doors, in the twilight years of their lives, seeking redressal of their grievances against their children.”

On June 5, the 70-year-old woman, in her direct address to the court, had insisted that her daughter along with her 19-year-old son be directed to forthwith vacate her flat. However, because of the pandemic and consequent problems that individuals are facing, the HC had declined to pass such an order.

The Bench had then said, “We hereby sternly warn the daughter, as well as her son that in the event of this court receiving any complaint from the mother of harassment by either or both of them, then in that event, after verifying the same, we will be constrained to pass orders, including an order restraining them from entering the said flat.”

The HC had also directed the senior inspector of the local police station, under whose jurisdiction the said flat is situated, to render all assistance, at any point of time to the petitioner, who is a senior citizen, as and when she needs the same.

The daughter on June 19 filed an affidavit stating that her mother was reacting or overreacting at the instance of her another sibling who had temporarily come down with her family from Singapore. The mother, however, refuted this allegation.

The mother offered to give one of her flats at Nalasopara to her daughter to stay there with her son from July 15. The daughter then took an undertaking, on the same day, to vacate the said flat with her son within eight weeks.