“Nowadays a section of youngsters is failing to look after the aged and ailing parents, and the number is swelling. This is not a happy development,” the High Court of Karnataka has observed while rejecting a petition filed by two persons, who challenged a direction given to them by a tribunal to pay monthly maintenance to their 84-year-old mother.
“Law, religion and custom mandate sons to look after their parents, and more particularly aged mother. Smrutikaras say: ‘rakshanti sthavire putra …’ , nearly meaning that it is the duty of son to look after his mother who is in the evening of her life,” the court said.
“...To neglect the parents, particularly in their old age, when they become weak and dependent and to cause anguish, is a heinous act for which there is no atonement available,” the court while translating the meaning of a sloka from Brahmanda Purana.
Justice Krishna S. Dixit made these observations while rejecting a petition filed by Gopal, 50, and Mahesh, 40, both residents of Mysuru, questioning the order by the tribunal, constituted under the provisions of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007.
The virtuous idea was that one should respect and serve one’s parents, guests and gurus, before one worships the Almighty. This had been the tradition of this land since centuries, the court pointed out.
The petitioners contended that they had no means to pay maintenance to their mother but they were willing to look after their mother and therefore, she should be asked to join their home, leaving the place of her daughters. The mother had claimed maintenance only at the instigation of her daughters, it was contended by the sons.
“If an able-bodied person is bound to maintain his dependent wife, there is no reason why such a rule should not apply when it comes to the case of a dependent mother,” the court said, while pointing out that the petitioners were able-bodied persons as it was not that they were weak and not capable of earning.
The court also noted that one of the petitioners had rental income of over ₹10,000 per month from three shops and the petitioners had suppressed their rental income from the tribunal.
“No law or ruling of the kind is cited that the unwilling parents can be forced to reside with their children. Such a contention is incongruous and abhorrent to our culture and tradition, to say the least,” the court said, while rejecting the sons’ plea for a direction to the mother to join them as they were willing to look after her.
Pointing out that petitioners had placed no material to substantiate their allegation that the mother was being manipulated by her daughters, the court noted that it was not that the daughters wanted any share in the family property but it was they who had been looking after their mother who had been abandoned by the sons.
On the petitioner’s contention that ₹10,000 each was too high, the court said that nowadays “bread is costlier than blood”, and “to hold body and soul together, more than that sum is necessary.”
