NEW DELHI: The Bombay high court has ruled that a son cannot stop paying maintenance to his elderly parents just because his wife has disputes with them. The court upheld an order directing a man working in Dubai to pay Rs 8,000 a month to his parents under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, in its order dated July 6.What was the issueThe case was heard at the Bombay high court’s Goa bench and involved Altaf Shaikh, a man working in Dubai who used to send money for his family’s expenses and had even bought properties in his parents’ names. But after his wife filed a domestic violence case against his parents, he stopped sending them money, as per a report by LiveLaw.His father, who is 70 and bedridden after a paralysis attack, and his 62-year-old mother, who could not afford a lawyer and appeared before the court on her own, approached the senior citizens’ tribunal for help.The tribunal noted that another son was contributing some money, but it wasn’t enough to cover their expenses, hence the tribunal ordered Shaikh to pay Rs 8,000 a month as maintenance, which he then challenged before the high court.What did the court sayJustice Dr Neela Gokhale dismissed Shaikh’s plea, holding that a son’s duty to maintain his parents under the 2007 Act is a separate legal obligation that does not depend on how well his wife gets along with them. In other words, a domestic dispute between a daughter-in-law and her in-laws cannot be used as a legal shield by the son to escape his own responsibility toward his parents.“The facts in the present case expose various issues faced by elderly parents, especially a bedridden father suffering from paralysis on the one hand and a discord between the petitioner’s wife and his parents on the other. Due to the family discord, the petitioner stopped sending money to his parents. It appears that the family disputes have assumed such a significant proportion as to reach the docket of a Magistrate hearing cases under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005,” the court noted.The court further pointed out that Shaikh had once shown affection for his parents by buying property in their name, but was now refusing to pay even a small amount for his father’s medical care.“Now, the petitioner son, who at one time admitted to buying property in his parents’ name out of reverence, has refused to pay a paltry sum of Rs 8,000 towards his father’s medical expenses. The family discord between the petitioner’s wife and his parents is not a justification enough to refuse payment of maintenance,” the court further added.With these observations, the court upheld the tribunal’s decision and directed Shaikh to continue paying Rs 8,000 a month to his parents.
