Kolkata: A 68-year-old woman, who had severed all ties with her only son 15 years ago, has moved Calcutta High Court praying that her son, a sailor, fund her medical costs and her old-age home stay.
The son has expressed his unwillingness, arguing in the HC that his mother did not bring him up. He was raised by his paternal grandfather, and his mother did not even attend his wedding. The HC on Wednesday asked the woman's daughter-in-law to visit her in a Kalyani old-age home, check her health status, and then decide. The son, now sailing, was represented by his wife. The woman, partially paralysed and wheelchair-bound , lives in an old-age home without proper facilities. The NGO wants to shift her to a better but costlier facility. She told the HC that repeated calls to her son by the NGO had gone unanswered, forcing her to move court, seeking actions under Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007.
The Act allows courts to step in, asking children to pay maintenance to their senior citizen parents. The mother told the HC there was no one to take care of her and she requires maintenance. The son's counsel told the court that apart from the fact that she was the biological mother, he had no personal ties with her. After his parents separated, he was raised by his grandfather. After 2005, the mother allegedly refused to live with her son and the grandfather. She had no contact with the son until 2023-24. He sought his mother's medical records but Justice Amrita Sinha said, "Where is the difficulty in going and seeing how she is? She is suffering from partial paralysis waist down. You can go and see whether it's true or not".