Looking after parents legal obligation: Court

A Delhi court has ruled that providing maintenance to old parents is not only a legal obligation of a person but also his moral and social duty.

The court's view was expressed while trashing a plea of two brothers who had challenged an order to pay maintenance of Rs 1,000 each to their widowed mother despite earning above Rs 1 lakh per month.

"The records of the case indicate that the mother is seeking maintenance from her own dear ones (sons) which is otherwise their social and moral duty to maintain the parents," additional sessions judge K S Mohi said.

The estranged sons of the woman had filed a revision petition before the sessions court against the order passed by the Metropolitan Magistrate under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code in April this year.

Their mother had sought the maintenance alleging that her sons have not only dispossessed her from the ground floor of the house but also started harassing her after the death of their father nine years ago.

She claimed that her sons, who are earning in lakhs, did not pay even a single penny to her despite the fact that she was an old and illiterate woman.

Section 125 of the CrPC provides right to maintenance to deserted married woman and parents.

The woman's sons rubbished her charges contending that they had been brought up by their grandmother as their mother had always neglected them.

The court, however, said that the plea of the sons was not sustainable as it was not raised at the first instance before the lower court.

Moreover, the court said it was the moral as well as social duty cast upon the sons to maintain the parents.

ASJ Mohi refused to interfere with the lower court order on the interim maintenance saying that it did not suffer from any illegality.