Legal Heirs Have To Prove Bona Fides To Inherit Tenancy Rights
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2023-09-22 05:02:15
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The Calcutta High Court has ruled that if other conditions are not satisfied, a person cannot claim tenancy rights just by depositing rent with the rent controller. In the instant case, a lady who was allegedly the adopted child of a registered tenant for a property, kept on depositing rent for the premises with the rent controller after the death of her mother as her mother had 'transferred' the tenancy to her in her will, for which she had obtained a probate. But on closer scrutiny, the court found that proper papers for her adoption by her alleged mother, the registered tenant, were not there. Hence the court ruled that in the absence of such papers proving she was the adopted daughter of the registered tenant, the tenancy could not be said to have passed to her as inheritance on the death of her mother even though it was willed by her.
The daughter had claimed a mother-daughter relationship with the deceased but there were no s to prove that she was formally and legally adopted by the deceased registered tenant. The court ruled that in the absence of any document to prove the mother-daughter relationship, just the fact that the deceased tenant had transferred the tenancy through a will and the claimant had kept on depositing the rent with the rent controller does not give her tenancy rights.
Normally, subject to some conditions in the tenancy laws, tenancy is transferred to the legal heirs of the deceased tenant upon application. But for that the legal heirs need to prove their bona fides. In this case, the claimant failed to do so and hence she was treated as a trespasser as charged by the landlord.
