Karnataka HC asks 85-year-old Kodagu woman’s son and granddaughter to pay her Rs 14 lakh in annual maintenance

In 2021 the elderly woman approached the Madikeri assistant commissioner, who is empowered to adjudicate maintenance issues under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007, over the stopping of the payments.

The assistant commissioner in April 2021 ordered the cancellation of the gift deeds under which the elderly woman had granted parts of the family coffee estate to her third son, AB Ganapathy, and Pooja Subbaiah, the daughter of her eldest son.

Aggrieved by the order of the assistant commissioner, the son and granddaughter filed a plea before the Kodagu deputy commissioner, the appellate authority under the 2007 Act. The deputy commissioner struck down the assistant commissioner’s decision to cancel the gift deeds executed by the elderly woman to her son and granddaughter but also ordered that they should pay monthly maintenance to the elderly woman.
The high court, by citing the order of the deputy commissioner in March 2022, observed that the woman was paid Rs 48 lakh as maintenance between 2016 and 2019 and that no maintenance was paid between 2019 and 2020.

“The order does not quote the figure. Non-quoting of the figure is taken advantage of by respondents 1 and 2 by contending that Section 24 of the Act mandates a maximum of Rs 10,000/- to be paid as maintenance and, therefore, they are ready and willing to pay Rs 10,000/- or even Rs 25,000/- per month but not the amount of Rs 7,00,000/- per year that was being paid earlier as there was no condition of the kind,” the court observed.

“What is being paid by respondents 1 and 2 is a sum of Rs 14,00,000/- in total every year – Rs 7,00,000/- each annually. This is evident from the bank statements between 2016-2019 and that is admitted by the learned counsel for respondents 1 and 2 that respondents 1 and 2 did transfer `48,00,000/-,” the court said. “Therefore, respondents 1 and 2 cannot now contend that they would not pay maintenance to the petitioner till her lifetime.”

“The Act obligated the donee to pay maintenance in a maximum of Rs 10,000/- or the amount that is projected by respondents 1 and 2 that they would pay Rs 25,000/- per month is of no avail, as the petitioner was being paid at Rs 14,00,000/- annually, which the respondents 1 and 2 cannot escape under any garb,” the court added.