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Synopsis

The Delhi High Court in its judgment dated May 12, 2023, dismissed a petition challenging Section 23(1) of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007.

It was held that no matter the objective of the 2007 Act which is to protect the rights and interests of senior citizens, the court sitting under Article 226 cannot make provision for what the legislature consciously omitted to do.

Section 23 of the Act provides that after the commencement of the aforementioned Act if any senior citizen makes any transfer by way of gift or otherwise on the condition that the transferee will maintain, and ensure basic amenities to such senior citizen and the transferee fails or rejects to do so, the transfer so made shall be assumed to be vitiated by fraud, coercion, undue influence and be voidable at the option of the transferor.

A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad, while dismissing the petition at hand, observed, “Despite the object for which the Act was brought into force, Section 23 of the Senior Citizens Act as enacted by the Legislature makes the Section operative only after the commencement of the Act. The Legislature did not intend that Section 23 be read retrospectively…The Act did not intend to disturb the rights of the donee which has already been created and vested in him. The Legislature is conscious of the fact that vested rights of the donor are not to be given a retrospective operation despite the fact that the object of the Act is to provide for measures for welfare of senior citizens. This is not a case of casus omissus and this Court while exercising its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India cannot make the provision what the Legislature did not intend it to be.”

Reliance was placed in this regard to the observations in Govind Das v. Income Tax Office, (1976) 1 SCC 906, Commissioner of Income Tax, New Delhi v. Vatika Township, (2015) 1 SCC 1, Commissioner of Income Tax Mumbai v. Essar Teleholdings, (2018) 3 SCC 253, Padma Sundara Rao v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2002) 3 SCC 533, Meet Malhotra v. Union of India, LPA 532/2022, and Human Rights and Social Welfare v. Union of India, 2021 SCC OnLine Ker 12268.

Brief Background:

The present petition challenged the constitutional validity of Section 23(1) of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 whereby it restricts the applicability of the Section only to gifts of property made by Senior citizens after the commencement of the aforementioned Act. Section 23(1) verbatim provides that, where any senior citizen who, after the commencement of this Act, has transferred by way of gift or otherwise, his property, subject to the condition that the transferee shall provide the basic amenities and basic physical needs to the transferor and such transferee refuses or fails to do so, the transfer made in such a case shall be deemed to have been made by fraud, coercion or under influence and shall at the option of the transferor be declared void by the Tribunal.

The main argument by the petitioner was that the said provision should be read in a manner that allows this benefit to any senior citizen, who might have made such transfer, before the commencement of this Act as well, as prospective reading defeats the very objective of the Act.

Case Title: Charanjit Singh Ahluwalia v. Union of India | WP (C) 12076 of 2022