Gujarat HC stays conciliation officer’s notice in parents’ maintenance case

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court has stayed a notice issued by a conciliation officer to a chartered accountant in connection with an application filed by his parents seeking maintenance, holding that the officer lacked jurisdiction under the law.The aged parents of the chartered accountant, Mayur Zawar of Surat, had filed an application with the district collectorate under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007. The maintenance tribunal subsequently transferred the case to a conciliation officer, a social welfare officer in Surat. On Oct 29 last year, the officer issued a notice to Zawar, seeking his response.
Challenging the notice in the high court, Zawar's counsel, Zameer Shaikh, argued that the conciliation officer was not a tribunal designated under the Act. Section 7 of the law stipulates that the maintenance tribunal must be presided over by an officer not below the rank of a sub-divisional officer.Under Section 18 of the Act, the state govt has designated the district social welfare officer as the maintenance officer to represent parents, if they so desire, during tribunal proceedings. However, in the present case, the conciliation officer acted as the maintenance tribunal and issued the notice, which was beyond his jurisdiction. The matter, it was argued, fell within the jurisdiction of the tribunal, where the designated authority was a deputy district collector.After hearing the arguments, Justice Aniruddha Mayee issued a notice to the conciliation officer seeking his reply by Feb 27 and stayed the officer's notice issued to the chartered accountant, stating: "In the meantime, there shall be an ad-interim stay of the impugned notice dated Oct 29, 2025, till the next date of hearing."