Son can’t claim right to parents’ flats till they are alive, says Bombay high court – Times of India

MUMBAI: Bombay high court told a man he has no legal right to claim his parents’ two flats as his “shared household” as long as they are alive.
“Your father is alive. Your mother is alive. You have zero interest in your father’s estate. He can sell it. He does not need your permission. Understood?” said Justices Gautam Patel and Madhav Jamdar on Wednesday.
The son sought to intervene in a petition by his mother, along with his two married sisters, to appoint her as the legal guardian of her husband who is in a vegetative state. He has dementia, has had multiple strokes and has been hospitalised often.
The court-appointed J J Hospital’s October 1, 2021, report said he has had dementia since 2011. He has pneumonitis and bed sores. He is administered oxygen nasally, fed through a Ryles tube and has a Foley catheter. He has spontaneous eye movements but cannot maintain eye contact, speak, understand, sign or take any decision.
The advocate for the son, who lives at another address, said he has been the de facto guardian of his father for several years. “You (the son) should have come to appoint yourself de jure guardian. You took him once to the doctor? You paid his medical bills?” asked Justice Patel.
The judges, in their March 16 order, noted while the petitioners have annexed a large number of documents showing expenses and bills paid by the mother, “there is not one scrap of paper adduced by him in support of his contention”.
The son’s advocate then said although his parents are alive, the two flats are his “shared household” and he has a legal right to them. “The submission is so ill-founded and illogical that it only needs to be stated to be rejected. In any conceptualisation of succession law for any community or faith, the son can have no right, title or interest in either of these flats—one in his father’s name and other in his mother’s name—so long as his parents are alive. The fact that he is their son does not make either of their flats a ‘shared household’,” they said. Further, the son has “no rights in his father’s flats” and he has “nothing to show that he has ever cared for his father”.
The judges rejected the son’s intervention application, saying they don’t need his consent for the order they intend to make. They also rejected his contention that his mother has an alternate remedy to move the committee under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, adding, “That submission alone shows us his true nature, his utterly heartless and avaricious approach.” Keeping the petition pending, they permitted the mother to operate a joint bank account to meet her husband’s expenses and also negotiate for sale of two flats in Marol but not to seal the deal without the HC’s nod.