HC: Reconsider monthly maintenance to be paid by children to parents

IN a major move that is going to be beneficial to the elderly across the country, the Karnataka High Court has recommended the Union Government to revisit Section 9 of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, to enhance the ceiling on the monthly maintenance to be paid to them, considering the exponential inflation cost of living.

- YATHIRAJU @Bengaluru

"Can maintenance so meagre achieve the objects of the Act? Can a citizen secure dignity, subsistence, and medical aid within the confines of Section 9? This requires pondering, so to say otherwise would be to reduce the existence of those senior citizens to "as a mere animal existence". This court cannot legislate; it cannot rewrite Section 9, yet it bears the responsibility to sensitise the Government of India that a provision which stood meaningful in 2007, now mocks its own benevolence in 2025", the high court observed.