Cap on maintenance payments for senior citizens should be raised: Karnataka High Court

After further proceedings in 2021, the parents approached the assistant commissioner of Bengaluru’s North subdivision and obtained the compensation order in their favour.

The petitioners’ counsel argued before the high court that the Act did not provide for such compensation but only a maintenance payment capped at Rs 10,000 per month. It was also argued that the parents were also in possession of the disputed property as it was a joint family property and that they were also earning Rs 80,000 per month from rented shops.

The counsel for the parents, on the other hand, argued that they had undergone financial hardships and that there was no record to show that the property was a family property.

Observing that a lump-sum compensation was contrary to the Act, the single-judge bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna remitted the matter back to the assistant commissioner for a fresh hearing, but made several observations regarding the provisions for maintenance under the Act.

The bench said the cap of Rs 10,000 per month was no longer sufficient as it had been when the law was passed in 2007.

“In the year 2007-08, the cost inflation index stood at 129; today, it soars at 363. Thus, what one could procure for Rs 100/- in 2007, requires nearly a ₹1000/- in 2025. Prices of food, shelter, and medicine have climbed steeply; only the statutory cap of Rs 10,000/- has remained petrified…,” the bench explained.

The court therefore recommended that the Central Government revisit the cap in section 9 of the Act.

“It is, but a rope of sand, incapable of sustaining those for whom it is meant. Therefore, this Court deems it fit to recommend, with earnestness, that the Union revisit Section 9 and revise the ceiling in tune with the cost of living index, so that the Act may not be reduced to a hollow promise, but remain a living guarantee of dignity in old age,” the court’s order further stated.

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