New Delhi: The Delhi high court observed that sons don’t have legal right over self-acquired house of their parents.
The remark came while the court was rejecting a couple’s plea of seeking relief from a lower court order that denied the son’s claim of co-owning the house.
The court said, “A son, irrespective of his marital status, has no legal right to live in the self-acquired house of his parents and can reside there only at their mercy.”
“Where the house is self-acquired house of the parents, the son, whether married or unmarried, has no legal right to live in that house and he can live in that house only at the “mercy” of his parents up to the time the parents allow,” Justice Pratibha Rani said in an order. “Merely because the parents have allowed him to live in the house, so long as his relations with the parents were cordial, does not mean that the parents have to bear his burden throughout his life,” the court added.
It said this while dismissing an appeal by a man and his wife challenging the order of a trial court which had passed a decree in favour of his parents, who had filed a suit seeking a direction to their son and daughter-in-law to vacate the floors in their possession.
The parents, both senior citizens, had told the lower court that both their son and daughter-in-law, who were living with them, have made their “life hell.” They had filed complaints with the police and also issued public notices in 2007 and 2012, debarring the sons from their self-acquired property.
Both the son and daughter-in-law had contested the suit before the trial court while denying the allegations. They had also claimed that they were the co-owners of the property as they had contributed towards its purchase and construction.
However, the trial court had passed the decree in favour of the parents. After this, one of the sons, along with his wife, had moved the high court.
In the order, Justice Rani noted that the son and his wife were unable to prove that they were the co-owners of the property though his parents have established their contention on the basis of documentary evidence.
