Can Parents Evict a Daughter-in-Law From Home?

Vanitha married her husband on May 30, 2002. He had bought a plot at Gangondonahalli, Dasanapura, Bengaluru North on May 2, 2002, a few months before the wedding. Vanitha said her father financed a portion of that purchase. She also said she was harassed for dowry.

The property then changed hands twice. On October 5, 2006, the husband sold the land to his father for Rs. 1.19 lakh, the same price he had paid in 2002. By then the couple had a daughter. The father built a house and, on July 19, 2010, gifted it to his wife, Vanitha's mother-in-law. Weeks later, on August 17, 2010, the mother-in-law sued Vanitha for a permanent injunction against interfering with her possession. That suit was still pending when the Supreme Court decided the case.

The marriage was collapsing in court at the same time. The husband filed for divorce in 2009, and the trial court dissolved the marriage on December 5, 2013. Vanitha filed a maintenance case in March 2014 and appealed the divorce. On January 14, 2016, the Karnataka High Court set aside the divorce decree and sent the matter back to the Family Court. While that appeal was pending, the husband married another woman.

Vanitha said her husband had deserted her and their minor daughter. The electricity to the house had been cut for non-payment of dues. Their daughter had sought admission to an engineering degree course, yet the father gave no financial support.

In 2015 an application under the Senior Citizens Act came before the Assistant Commissioner, Bengaluru North Sub-Division. It named Vanitha and her husband as respondents. The judgment's own description of the applicants is not uniform: paragraph 1 names both in-laws, while paragraph 5 names the father-in-law and the son. The reliefs sought were:

• Vanitha's eviction from the house.
• A direction to the husband to pay Rs. 15,000 a month to his parents.
• A direction to Vanitha and her husband to pay Rs. 25,000 towards legal expenses.

Vanitha called the case malicious and collusive. She said it was an attempt to evict her from her matrimonial home. She also objected that the Act provides for maintenance but has no provision for an order of eviction.

On June 25, 2015, the Assistant Commissioner held the house was the father-in-law's self-acquired property, later gifted to the mother-in-law. Vanitha lived there but had no right or authority, he said, and her claim for maintenance lay only against her husband. He ordered the husband to pay Rs. 10,000 a month and ordered Vanitha to vacate. The Deputy Commissioner dismissed her appeal on February 29, 2016.

The Karnataka High Court sided with the in-laws. The Single Judge, on June 18, 2019, relied on the registered gift deed and the in-laws' claim that Vanitha had ousted them on August 12, 2010, so that they were living in their "native place". He did not address her jurisdiction objection. The Division Bench, on September 17, 2019, held she had no cause of action against the owners of the house and that her claim for maintenance and shelter lay only against her husband. It directed her to vacate before December 31, 2019. Vanitha told the Supreme Court that the Division Bench's finding about her residential status rested on a fraudulent set-up. A postal cover dispatched on June 21, 2018, came back endorsed "no such person" because nobody was home to receive it.

The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 defines maintenance to include residence. It uses broad language for property and, under Section 3, overrides inconsistent laws. Section 23(1) lets a Tribunal declare void a transfer a senior citizen made on condition that the transferee provide basic amenities. Section 23(2) allows a right to receive maintenance out of an estate to be enforced against certain transferees. The in-laws argued that the Tribunal's power to evict had to be read into the Act by implication. Vanitha answered that the house was her matrimonial residence, a "shared household" under Section 2(s) of the Domestic Violence Act, 2005.

The two laws pulled in opposite directions. Section 3 of the Senior Citizens Act says it applies despite anything inconsistent in any other enactment. Section 36 of the Domestic Violence Act says its provisions are in addition to, and not in derogation of, any other law. The Court noted the ordinary rule that, where two special Acts both carry non-obstante clauses, the later law typically prevails. It added that the dominant purpose of both statutes must be analysed, and that the interpreter's primary effort must be to harmonise, not excise.

The Court then looked at the transfer chain. The husband bought the land before the wedding and sold it to his father at the same price years later. The father then gifted it to the mother, after divorce proceedings had begun. Those transfers, the Court said, "cannot be viewed in isolation from the context of the on-going matrimonial dispute". The question was whether Vanitha and her minor daughter could be ousted in that manner.

Justice D.Y. Chandrachud's judgment held that the Tribunal under the Senior Citizens Act may have the authority to order eviction if it is necessary and expedient to ensure the maintenance and protection of a senior citizen or parent. That remedy, the Court added, can be granted only after adverting to the competing claims in the dispute. It refused to let the summary procedure become a quick route around the Domestic Violence Act.

• Recourse to the summary procedure was not available to facilitate strategies designed to defeat the daughter-in-law's claim to a shared household. It made no difference that no Domestic Violence Act case was pending when the Senior Citizens application was filed, because destitution, ignorance or lack of resources can keep a woman from the courts.
• In a composite dispute, the Tribunal should mould reliefs after noticing the competing claims. It should grant maintenance remedies under Section 2(b) that do not obviate remedies under other special statutes. If the woman obtains relief from that Tribunal, she is duty-bound under Section 26(3) of the 2005 Act to inform the Magistrate.

In Vanitha's case, the Court set aside the Division Bench's judgment and the Assistant Commissioner's order to vacate. It said her claim that the premises were a shared household must be determined by the appropriate forum. It left her free to pursue Domestic Violence Act remedies and to seek help from the District Legal Services Authorities.

Using Article 142, the Court also made two further directions. The estranged husband must restore the electricity within two weeks of receiving a certified copy of the judgment and keep paying future dues. The respondents were restrained for one year from forcibly dispossessing Vanitha, disposing of the premises or creating third-party rights in it. Costs of Rs. 25,000 were awarded to Vanitha from the private respondents. The in-laws remain at liberty to apply under Section 10 of the Senior Citizens Act for alteration of the maintenance allowance.

• Gather the paper trail. Collect the registered May 2, 2002 purchase, the October 5, 2006 registered sale to the father and the July 19, 2010 gift deed to the mother-in-law. Add the marriage certificate and the current status of the divorce, maintenance, injunction and Senior Citizens proceedings. Also keep electricity bills or disconnection notices, proof of residence, and the daughter's education or fee records.
• Know the forums. Parents seeking relief go to the Maintenance Tribunal under the Senior Citizens Act. The judgment says eviction can be granted only after the competing claims are noticed. A woman like Vanitha can apply to the Magistrate under Section 12 read with Section 19 of the Domestic Violence Act. She can also seek residence relief in a civil, family or criminal proceeding under Section 26. In this case the Court said Vanitha could seek help from the District Legal Services Authorities.
• Remember what remains open. The parents remain free to seek alteration of a maintenance allowance under Section 10. In this case the Supreme Court also directed the estranged husband to restore electricity within two weeks of receiving a certified copy and to pay future dues. It restrained the respondents from dispossession, sale or third-party rights for one year.
• Avoid the shortcut. The summary procedure of the Senior Citizens Act was not available for strategies designed to defeat a daughter-in-law's shared-household claim. The eviction order in this case was set aside for exactly that reason.