MUMBAI, March 8 -- In the second order of its kind on the same day, the Bombay High Court on Thursday upheld the decision of a tribunal to evict a man who had dispossessed his elderly mother from her redeveloped flat in Lower Parel west. A single judge bench of Justice N J Jamadar held that barging into his mother's flat and forcibly removing her from her property was in breach of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, which requires a child or a relative to provide a dignified life to the elderly. The same judge on Thursday granted relief to another 71-year-old woman, upholding a tribunal's order instructing her son and daughter-in-law to vacate her Mulund flat. The woman, who was forced to move into a geriatric care facility, had claimed the couple had physically assaulted her and pressured her to execute documents transferring ownership of the flat to the son. "A senior citizen is entitled to safeguard his physical and mental health," the court observed in both cases. In the second instance, the 43-year-old son, who runs his own business, had challenged the order of the appellate authority, which had upheld an order of the Maintenance Tribunal constituted under the Senior Citizens Act. In October 2025, the tribunal had ordered his eviction from his 73-year-old mother's flat. The son had been occupying the apartment since November 5, 2023, after he allegedly broke open the door and threw out his mother. The apartment, on the fourth floor of a building, was allotted to his mother after the redevelopment of Pardiwala Chawl that they earlier lived in. The mother had filed a private complaint before a magistrate against the son after he allegedly dispossessed her from her property. She told the court that she was then forced to live in rented accommodation with her younger son in Badlapur. She said her elder son was "aggressive and quarrelsome by nature". She said he had been living separately in Lower Parel east since 2013 and could not claim that he had a right over her property. The letter of possession handed over by the developer in August 2023 was in her name, the court was told. Justice N J Jamadar found credence in the mother's submissions that her "alleged dispossession occurred under a couple of the months of the delivery of the possession of the subject flat by the developer to respondent No1 (mother)". Granting the son three weeks to vacate the flat, the court said the rights of the mother in the redeveloped property cannot be controverted as both her sons, in proceedings before a different court, had conceded that they lived in their erstwhile chawl tenement "at the mercy of their mother". The son had contended that his eviction could not be ordered when his mother had not made any claim for maintenance. He claimed she earned rent of Rs.25,000-30,000 from their commercial premises in Lower Parel and he lived in her flat in lieu of that. A senior citizen's right to lead a "normal life", the court said, "connotes a safe, dignified, peaceful and physical and emotional stress-free life". The court also said that while the tribunal can award a maximum maintenance of Rs.10,000 to a senior citizen, "In a metropolis like Mumbai, where the property commands premium, for a senior citizen, who is dispossessed of her own premises, an award of maintenance of the maximum amount of Rs.10,000 per month can hardly be a solace," Justice Jamadar said. He also said that it cannot be laid down as an immutable law that the application for eviction, without seeking monetary maintenance, is not maintainable before the tribunal, "even when the senior citizen claims that she has been dispossessed of her property"....