Elderly woman fights legal battle against daughter to keep her house

Ishrat S Banwait

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 17

For the past 19 months, a 75-year-old single lady is fighting a legal battle to get her daughter and her family evicted from her house. While she had herself invited her first daughter to live with her, Bala Devi now wants to get her evicted as the family is not only assaulting and harassing the old lady but also trying to take over the house.

Bala Devi walks slowly with the help of a walker. Ask her if she has a physical disability, her eyes fill with tears. “No, my daughter and her family beat me up,” she informs. Her husband died 13 years ago, leaving three daughters behind. She worked as a maid to raise her daughters and get them married.

However, as destiny had it, her youngest daughter passed away a while ago. She got other two daughters married, the youngest one just three years ago. All alone in the autumn of her life, Bala Devi invited her elder daughter Rekha to live with her. She offered her the top floor of her three-storeyed house in Dadu Majra village while she lived on the ground floor. However, Rekha’s husband and four children also moved in after a while.

Bala Devi’s earnings came from rent of the two floors. However, she was ready to give up one just to have some kind of family living with her. “The rent from the first floor is now my only source of income,” she adds. However, soon after Rekha moved in with her family, they started harassing the old lady.

From beating her up and forcing her to leave the house to not allowing any tenant to live on the first floor, her daughter has been one no parent would wish for. Bala Devi could not take it anymore and asked her daughter to move out. However, that did not happen. Hence, with the help of a friend, who lives nearby, she approached the UT Administration.

Ray of hope

Having called the police against her daughter’s family a number of times to save herself from being thrashed, Bala Devi approached the UT Administration in December 2016 to save her house. She even disowned her daughter to get her evicted, but in vain.

Rekha told the Deputy Commissioner, who was hearing the case, that the house is in the name of her late father who had given the second floor to her. Hence, she could not be evicted from the house. However, she could not prove the same.

The house still being in the name of the father became grounds for the DC to pass an order that Rekha could not be evicted as she was also a legal heir to the house. However, he did direct the UT Police to depute a sub-inspector and a lady constable to visit Bala Devi fortnightly and submit a monthly report to the DC’s office.

However, Rekha and her family’s behaviour did not change despite the DC asking them to not to harass her and take care of her. Bala Devi thus appealed against the order in the High Court. The HC has set aside the DC’s order only to the effect that the DC should look into it again. Thus, Bala Devi can once again look forward to some kind of solution to live the rest of her life somewhat comfortably.