Civil disputes far outnumber criminal court cases filed by senior citizens in West Bengal

By: Subrata Chattoraj, Debashis Konar & Bipasha Sain
KOLKATA: More than 100,000 of the 1.4 lakh cases filed by senior citizens in Bengal are civil disputes.
According to the National Judicial Data Grid which captures case pendency across all courts in India, a third of these civil disputes are in South 24 Parganas. And over half of the criminal cases filed by senior citizens, which are being heard across courts in Bengal, are also from South 24-Paraganas.Courts in Alipore, which is in South 24 Parganas district, are hearing the highest number of cases filed by senior citizens in Bengal.

The cases filed by senior citizens in the state is around 5% of the total 26.2 lakh such cases filed across the country. In India, among the cases filed by senior citizens which are being heard, 19.8 lakh are civil disputes, and 6.4 lakh are criminal cases.
According to NJDC, Murshidabad is second to South 24 Parganas in cases filed by senior citizens which are being heard in courts. North 24 Parganas comes third and Hooghly fourth. Kolkata is in the fifth position. Courts in Kolkata are hearing 5,378 civil disputes and 1,088 criminal cases filed by senior citizens.
Kalimpong has the lowest such cases (71 civil and 7 criminal).
Advocate Tanmoy Chatterjee said, "In most cases, these civil disputes are linked to landlord-tenant disputes and property ownership. The courts in many cases had to step in to allow senior citizens to stay in their homes." Subroto Mookherjee, senior advocate, said: "In a recent case, a state government employee had thrown out his parents from the home owned by his father and the court directed the parents to be allowed to stay at the house."
Senior lawyers argue justice to senior citizens who come to court for redress must be quicker than the others. Senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said: "I personally believe these are cases in which both judges and lawyers should be proactive to conclude the litigation. Civil disputes take inordinately long time to reach judicial conclusion. Since a bulk of the cases lodged by senior citizens are civil ones, it is all the more important that justice is delivered quickly." Lawyer Biswaroop Bhattacharyya also asks for change in laws to allow for quick relief to senior citizens.
Senior advocate Saptangu Basu also said there is a need for clarity while giving orders in cases involving senior citizens.
Raju Mukherjee, secretary, state legal services authority (SLSA) said: "We provide all necessary support to the elderly under the Maintenance and Welfare of the Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007 as per the NALSA (Legal Services to Senior Citizens) Scheme 2016. If we are approached, we provide all help to senior citizens. As cases of elderly abuse are on the rise and for that this scheme has been taken by the National Legal Services Authority."