The Karnataka High Court has ruled that, in the absence of a clause requiring the donor to maintain his father, a gift deed executed by an elderly citizen in favor of his son who releases his property and later sells it cannot be revoked by the Assistant Commissioner of Senior Citizen Tribunal.
A petition filed in 2019 by a certain Vivek Jain, who bought the property from CS Harsha—who received it as a gift from his father Srinivas—was granted by a single judge panel of Justice M Nagaprasanna.
In the year 2000, Srinivas first completed a gift deed in his wife’s name. But when she passed away in 2015, Srinivas gave his son the property by having him execute it in 2019, and the boy’s name was added to all revenue records. In light of this, the son sold the land in the petitioner’s favor. Invoking Section 23 of the Senior Citizens Act, Srinivas petitioned the Assistant Commissioner two years after the aforementioned transaction.
The selling deed and the gift deed were both set aside by the assistant commissioner. Thus, the request.
The petitioner contended that the Assistant Commissioner should not have granted the petition since there was no such restriction in the gift deed. Furthermore, the petitioner’s sale deed could not have been revoked by the Assistant Commissioner.
Attorney Srinivas’s representing the donor said that following his wife’s passing, Srinivas thought the property had returned to him and as a result, he gave it to his son. The property would not, however, revert to the giver, and since the donee of the gift is no longer alive, every family member would have the right to pursue a piece of the property. Therefore, in legal terms, anything that was done after the wife passed away is void.
High Court Ruling.
The bench considered that the property was possessed by the donor (Srinivas) for more than four years following the death of his wife, to whom the property had been given. On June 20, 2019, a gift deed was signed in the son’s name. A release deed was also executed following the execution of the gift deed. The mother had taken out a loan from the bank, which the son paid off in full. Following that, the Bank signed a discharge deed in the son’s favor. As a result, the property became free of all debts. At that point, the son sold the land to the petitioner.
Additionally, the donor received a portion of the sale proceeds: Rs. 15 lakhs was deposited into the Life Insurance Corporation of India on his behalf, and the father/donor also received a monthly payment of Rs. 10,000 into his bank account.
The court stated, “The Assistant Commissioner would get jurisdiction to annul the gift deed only if the recitals in the gift deed have the condition, as observed by the Apex Court in RAMTI DEVI,” citing the ruling of the Apex Court in the case of Sudesh Chhikara v. Ramti Devu (2022). The donation deed contains no terms that would meet the requirements of the RAMTI DEVI test.
As a result, this Court is forced to intervene with the Assistant Commissioner’s order.
Furthermore, it disregarded Srinivas’s argument that the petitioner had the authority to challenge the Assistant Commissioner’s decision. “I decline to accept the said submission,” it stated. The petitioner appeared before the Assistant Commissioner as respondent No. 3. He had legally acquired his land, which he had to defend. When the petitioner bought the land from the fourth respondent, nothing went against the law. The petitioner had filed an appeal against the Assistant Commissioner’s decision and gone straight to the Deputy Commissioner. The petitioner is in front of this court as the appeal was denied for lack of maintainability.
“The current order of the Assistant Commissioner will always stare at him if he is to be driven to the civil court, as he has lost the property by a stroke of pen, of the Assistant Commissioner, which I have found fault with, following the aforesaid judgments,” it said. Because he cannot be left without recourse, the petitioner is therefore fully entitled to bring the aforementioned Assistant Commissioner order before this court.
Conclusion ends with a question.
The question of whether the father would regain ownership of the land upon the passing of his wife, the beneficiary of the original gift deed, was not taken up by the court. “I leave the issue open for the parties to agitate before a competent civil court,” the statement read.
Last but not least, the court ordered the son to provide his father an extra Rs 10,000 a month in maintenance due to the rising expense of living and the fact that the amount now being sent to him would not be sufficient.
