Maintenance Tribunal Can Evict a Son to Protect a Senior Citizen Father: Rajasthan High Court

On 12.04.2023 the father applied to the Maintenance Tribunal and Sub-Divisional Officer, Bilara under the 2007 Act for his son's eviction from the residential house, alleging harassment and misbehaviour (para 2). The son replied that the property was ancestral and his only residence, he living on the first floor and the father on the ground floor, and that an FIR had been registered against the father over an alleged assault (para 2). On 08.02.2024 the Tribunal directed him to vacate within two months, and a Single Judge dismissed his writ petition on 21.04.2026 (paras 1-2). In appeal he argued that neither the Act nor the State's 2010 Rules confer any power of eviction (para 3).

The Bench affirmed the Single Judge, whose order rested on three foundations: the Tribunal's jurisdiction to order eviction, the father's established ownership, and the hostility shown by the pending criminal proceedings (paras 5-8). The Act does not use the word eviction, but the Supreme Court has held in a series of judgments that Tribunals under it carry an implicit power to order eviction, because denying it would defeat the Act's purpose of speedy, simple and inexpensive remedies; eviction sought under Section 23 additionally needs a conditional transfer and a breach of the maintenance obligation (para 9). Ownership coupled with demonstrated harassment suffices to invoke the power, but it is discretionary: the Tribunal must be satisfied that eviction is necessary and expedient (para 10). The Single Judge had examined that question and found eviction warranted (para 11). The ancestral-property claim could not be gone into, as the son had filed no civil suit to enforce any right in the house (para 11). His own FIR against his father showed hostility at its lowest point, and forcing them to live together while opposing each other in criminal proceedings would serve neither (paras 11-12).