HC fines elderly woman for misusing Senior Citizens Act

MUMBAI: Bombay HC fined senior citizen Bharati Khandhar ₹1 lakh for misusing welfare laws to obstruct SBI's recovery efforts against her son.

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Wednesday fined a senior citizen for misusing welfare provisions in the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, to derail the recovery proceedings initiated by the State Bank of India (SBI) against her son and daughter-in-law.

HC fines elderly woman for misusing Senior Citizens Act

A division bench of justices BP Colabawalla and Somasekhar Sundaresan ordered the woman, Bharati Khandhar, to donate ₹1 lakh to Helpage India, a nonprofit that works for the welfare of the neglected elderly. The abuse of well-intentioned legislation can undermine its objectives and social impact, said the bench.

The court was hearing a petition filed by SBI, challenging an order passed by the Senior Citizens Tribunal at Panvel in 2021 cancelling two gift deeds executed by Khandhar. She had gifted two plots of lands at Karnala near Panvel to her son and daughter-in-law. Khandhar’s daughter-in-law, in turn, had mortgaged the plots with SBI against credit facilities availed from the public sector bank for their family business, Manav Greys Exim Pvt Ltd.

In October 2018, SBI declared the loan account a non-performing asset after the firm defaulted. In March 2020, after reaffirming the status, the bank initiated enforcement measures under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act (SARFAESI), 2002, which allows financial institutions to recover loans by auctioning the properties of borrowers who default.

In February 2022, SBI obtained orders from the jurisdictional magistrate to take possession of the mortgaged property. However, the Panvel tehsildar, who has the authority to enforce orders under the SARFAESI Act, refrained from executing the attachment order on the premise that the property did not belong to Khandhar’s daughter-in-law.

The tehsildar’s refusal to act on the magistrate’s order prompted SBI to approach the high court, which accepted its contention that the proceedings under the Senior Citizens Act were initiated only to scuttle the bank’s recovery process.

“We have no hesitation in concluding that the proceedings that led to the passing of the impugned order is a contrivance devised to abuse the Senior Citizens’ Act,” the bench said, as it struck down the order passed by the Senior Citizen’s Tribunal.

“Proceedings such as the one initiated by Bharati lead to a perception that such legislation, aimed at special protection for disadvantaged and weak members of society, are prone to abuse. Such misperception can undermine the standing of the merits of the cases pursued by genuine senior citizens who may invoke their entitlements,” the bench added.