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SON CANNOT AVOID RESPONSIBILITY TO MAINTAIN OLD FATHER:BOMBAY HC

Team SoOLEGAL 25 Jul 2022 10:46am

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SON CANNOT AVOID RESPONSIBILITY TO MAINTAIN OLD FATHER:BOMBAY HC

New Delhi: The Bombay High Court in Aurangabad recently ruled that a son cannot avoid his responsibility to care for his older and ailing father, nor can he force the father to live with him to pay maintenance.

While hearing a father's plea for maintenance from his son, single-judge Justice Vibha Kankanwadi noted that the son insisted on the father living with him.

"The son cannot avoid his obligations to support his father. He appears to be putting a condition on the petitioner (father) coming and staying with him like mother. Such a condition cannot be imposed by the son “the judge stated in her July 8 order.

The Court was hearing a father's petition challenging an order made by an Additional Sessions Judge who overturned a maintenance order made by a Judicial Magistrate First Class in Shevgaon, Ahmednagar district.

The son claimed before Justice Kankanwadi that his father was living separately from him due to differences between his mother and father, even though his mother was living with him.

However, the judge ruled that the issues of mother and father differences did not need to be addressed.

"Unfortunately, now the situation has arisen for the father that he is unable to maintain himself and then he is required to depend upon somebody else. The son is trying to say that because of the vices of the father, there are differences between the mother and the father and they are not residing together. So also now the father is demanding the money just to fulfill his vices. We cannot go into these disputed facts forever," the Court stated.

The court determined that the father, who was over 73 years old, was employed as a labourer and earned $20 per day.

The judge also stated that when deciding cases under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), courts should not be overly technical.

The judge concluded that "the approach taken by the lower court appears to be too hyper technical and when it comes to petitions under Section 125 of CrPC, the Courts cannot be so hyper technical in their approach. The said provision is made for the immediate support that too financial in nature of a person so that he or she can survive. Therefore, taking into consideration these aspects, definitely the Constitutional powers of this Court deserve to be invoked in this case when such too technical approach is taken and the father is forced to earn now at this age of 73 to 75 years."

As a result, the Court ordered the son to pay his father Rs. 3,000 per month.


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