CHENNAI: Holding that revenue divisional officers are empowered under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, to pass orders for evicting wards of senior citizens if they are illegally encroaching upon properties, the Madras High Court recently dismissed a petition filed by a man against an order to evict him from his elderly mother’s house in Coimbatore.
The matter pertains to a petition filed by K S Sudhakar challenging the May 21, 2026, order of the jurisdictional RDO to evict him from the house owned by his mother. In a family partition, the elderly woman and her daughter were partly allotted a house. However, her son Sudhakar forced her out and occupied it. The woman then submitted a complaint with the RDO concerned who then issued the order to evict Sudhakar. Challenging the order, Sudhakar filed the petition.
Justice Hemant Chandangoudar dismissed the petition finding no infirmity in the eviction order. He said the petitioner is in unlawful occupation of the property as the civil suit filed by him on the property was dismissed.
Concurring with the submissions of advocate P R Ramakrishnan, representing the elderly woman and her daughter, on the powers of the RDO to evict the son from the woman’s property, the judge said that in view of the Supreme Court’s order in Ravi Kant Gupta Vs State of UP case, the contention of the petitioner that the RDO has no statutory authority to pass the impugned order is without substance.
Granting two months’ time to the petitioner to hand over the property to his mother, the judge said the woman could seek the help of the police if the court order is not complied with.