Concealment of facts

Dear Client,
An individual gets the right to ancestral property by birth. Typically, ancestral property refers to property that has been inherited for four or more generations and has not been divided or sold off. Grandfather's property is ancestral property in the hands of the grandchildren. After the amendment of the Hindu Succession Act in 2005, daughters, regardless of their marital status, were given the right to claim their share both in ancestral property and self-acquired property(if left intestate) of their parents. Until and unless an undivided ancestral property is partitioned through a decree of partition passed by a Civil Court or a registered Family Settlement Deed executed by all the legal heirs/coparceners, a coparcener or legal heir cannot get his/her share in the said property and cannot transfer his/her share in the property without the consent of other legal heirs/ coparceners. Unless there is a condition stipulated in the release deed stating the transferee/beneficiary shall take care of the transferor, if he is unable to maintain herself or himself, seeking cancellation of the release deed under Section 23 of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 may not yield any favorable order to the litigants/Sr. Citizen. . Section 19 of the Indian Contract Act provides that where consent to an agreement is caused by coercion, undue influence, fraud, or misrepresentation, the agreement is a contract voidable at the option of the party whose consent was so obtained. So, in the absence of such elements as outlined under the Act, the transferor cannot revoke or cancel a release deed unilaterally. Any attempt to unilaterally cancel a release deed is likely to be deemed void and unenforceable. The proper course of action for cancelling a gift deed is to file a civil suit before the competent civil court seeking cancellation of gift deed and as per Article 59 of the Limitation Act, 1963, a suit for cancellation of a registered document (Release deed) is three years from the date the plaintiff gains knowledge of the fact behind the execution or registration of a document or the transaction. So, a property transferred 15 years back is now barred by the law of limitation. As regards cancellation of the gift deed under Section 23(1) of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Sr. Citizens Act, 2007, be informed that in a landmark judgment passed in the case of Nitin Rajendra Gupta vs. Deputy Collector, Mumbai and others,(2024:BHC-OS:5954), the Bombay High Court ruled that the provision of Section 23(1) of Act cannot be used as a machinery/tool for settling property disputes between the heirs of senior citizens. The Court observed that the Maintenance Tribunal established under the Senior Citizens Act, 2007, must ensure that Section 23(1) of the Act is not misused by the children who are denied a share in the immovable properties by seeking to get the gift deed annulled by filing an application through senior citizens. Different High Courts and the Supreme Court have consistently held that unilateral revocation of a gift deed or release deed is legally unsustainable in the absence of a revocation clause. Therefore, given the proposition of governing law and the courts' averments, it is recommended to seek legal advice from an experienced property Lawyer to understand your rights and remedies that suit your situation and protect your interests most.