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| Photo Credit: SUDHAKARA JAIN
The Delhi High Court has held that when senior citizens transfer property to family members through a gift deed, it comes with an implied condition of “love and affection”. If the beneficiaries fail to provide care and basic amenities, the deed can be cancelled.
A bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela gave the ruling while hearing the plea of an 88-year-old woman who had gifted her property to her daughter-in-law in 2015.
Soon after, the octogenarian stated, her daughter-in-law’s behaviour changed drastically. She was denied clothes, medicines, dentures, and even threatened with confinement. She, then, moved the Maintenance Tribunal under the Senior Citizens Act, claiming that she was neglected and even faced threats, following the transfer of her property.
In 2019, the Tribunal declined to cancel the gift deed but asked the local police to ensure her safety. She, then, appealed against this order before a local court, which in July 2023, directed cancellation of the deed.
The daughter-in-law then approached the High Court claiming that the gift deed could have been declared to be void only if it was executed with the condition that the she will provide basic amenities and basic physical needs to her mother-in-law.
The Court, in the judgment delivered on September 26, while rejecting the daughter-in-law’s plea against a single judge bench order, stated that such transfers are made in the hope that elders will be looked after in their old age.
The judgment stated that “love and affection” is an implied condition in the context of the Senior Citizens Act and, therefore, such condition need not be an express condition in the deed for the purpose of maintaining the senior citizen.
“…If parents decide to settle the property in favour of a son or daughter, then they do so only with love and affection and with a fond hope that they shall be taken care of in their old age and, therefore, love and affection being an implied condition of execution of the gift deed, subsequent non-maintenance of the senior citizen would attract Section 23(1) of the Senior Citizens Act,” the court remarked.
Published – September 29, 2025 07:14 pm IST
