Maintenance tribunal comes to 72-year-old mother's aid

Coming to the rescue of a 72-year-old woman, a Delhi maintenance tribunal for elderly people has ordered her two sons to pay her a monthly maintenance sum and allow her to live in her house, from which she had been turned out.

The maintenance tribunal held that her two sons would pay Rs.4,000 each per month to their widowed mother, who would also be allowed to live in her own house. One of her sons had earlier driven her out.

The 72-year-old Hitabhilashini Sharma had moved the tribunal seeking maintenance allowance and directions to her son to allow her to stay in her house.

She had alleged that both her sons were doing well for themselves -- while one of them worked with All India Radio in New Delhi, the other lived in the US. Neither of her sons however supported her in her old age. She alleged that she had been assaulted, humiliated and harassed by her sons.

The SHO of Harsh Vihar was directed to provide the woman protection, so that she was allowed by her son to live in her own house.

The tribunal held: "The son should try to live with the united family, along with his mother, since she is an old person, and in her lean years, must have the support of her family."

Sharma had filed the case against her son through advocates Ashok Agarwal and Khagesh Jha.

The tribunal also warned the son of penal action under the provisions of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 in case the directions of the tribunal are not complied with. - IANS