The High Court of Bombay has come to the rescue of a 70-year-old widow, who was being mentally & physically tortured by her daughter. The daughter allegedly kept the elderly woman under house arrest for months with a fractured shoulder & broken nerves without any support or proper medical care.
The bench of Justice SJ Kathawalla & Justice Surendra Tavade while issuing a stern warning to the daughter said that “If children cannot take care of their parents & allow them to live in peace, they at least ought not to make their life a living hell".
The bench stopped short of evicting the daughter, a divorcee, & her son, from the petitioner woman’s flat at Mumbai’s Lokhandwala Complex in view of the Coronavirus lockdown. However, the bench warned the daughter & her son that they will be evicted forthwith if either of them caused any harassment to the elderly woman or tried to stop any of her relatives contacting her or from entering the flat.
The Judges said that after talking to the petitioner, they had gathered an impression that the petitioner apprehended serious physical & mental harassment & consequently threat to her life at the hands of her daughter if she went to reside at her own flat with the daughter.
The bench said that “However, in view of the pandemic & the consequent problems that individuals are facing, we are today not passing an order directing the daughter to make alternate arrangements".
The elderly woman moved the HC seeking eviction of her abusive daughter & her son after the tribunal constituted under the Maintenance & Welfare of Parents & Senior Citizens Act, 2007 couldn't take up her plea for urgent reliefs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She said her abusive daughter had been in the wrong company all along. In 1998, she eloped with her boyfriend, a person having a criminal background. They spent 2 years in constant fights & in July 2000, he abandoned her & their toddler son, With the intervention of relatives, the daughter temporarily returned to her parents’ place at Lokhandwala but started living there forcibly.
The woman added that a few months after returning to the parents’ place the daughter began harassing the petitioner & her husband. Both of them had become helpless as the daughter had threatened to level false accusations of molestation against her father, she added.
The elderly woman’s plea said that she was mentally & physically tortured by her daughter, especially after her husband died in Jan 2011, & her finances were taken over by her. She was forced to remain naked so as to compel her not to step out of the house & was served food only once a day.
On Aug 3, 2018, she got an opportunity to step out of the flat but was hit by an auto-rickshaw while crossing a road. She had to be hospitalised. Thereafter, the 70-year-old couldn't move & was almost bedridden for a long time. During that time, her daughter did not allow any of her relatives to enter the flat & also broke the woman’s cell phone to ensure that she could not contact anybody else.
In Feb 2020, her other daughter came from the US & took her to Bombay Hospital where a series of tests revealed that she had a shoulder fracture & several of her nerves around the neck had been severely damaged.
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