On August 10, 2026, a 63-year-old Kolkata resident named Kripal Singh Khurana won a case he should never have had to fight. Locked in a bitter dispute with his wife and son over a residential flat, Khurana had gone to the Maintenance Tribunal set up under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, seeking eviction and protection of his property. When he tried to bring a lawyer, the Tribunal turned him away — Section 17 of the very Act meant to protect him says: “Notwithstanding anything contained in any law, no party to a proceeding before a Tribunal or Appellate Tribunal shall be represented by a legal practitioner.”

The Calcutta High Court’s Justice Krishna Rao disagreed, holding that Section 17 is ultra vires Section 30 of the Advocates Act, 1961, and that Khurana — and every senior citizen after him in West Bengal — is entitled to be represented by an advocate before these tribunals. That would be unremarkable, except this is now the sixth High Court to say precisely the same thing, over a span of twelve years, without Parliament amending the statute even once. For India’s elderly population — already estimated at around 173 million and rising toward roughly 15% of the population by 2036 — whether they can bring a lawyer to defend their home, their pension, or their safety still depends largely on which state’s courts have gotten around to saying so.

The Case That Reached the Calcutta High Court

The Act’s underlying purpose is straightforward: it gives elderly parents a fast, informal forum to claim maintenance from children or relatives, and protection against abuse and eviction from their own homes. Tribunals were deliberately built to be summary and lawyer-free, on the theory that legal proceedings should not become another obstacle for parents already struggling to be heard.

But the Maintenance Tribunal, as the Calcutta High Court noted, exercises real judicial power: it can administer oaths, summon witnesses, and compel production of documents, much like a civil court trying a suit. A body with a civil court’s coercive powers but none of a civil court’s procedural protections is exactly what has repeatedly persuaded High Courts that barring lawyers outright goes too far — particularly where, as in Khurana’s case, the senior citizen bringing the claim is the one being denied a lawyer by the provision meant to help him.

Section 17 vs. Section 30: The Conflict Courts Keep Finding

Section 17 was written as an overriding “notwithstanding” clause, barring legal representation “notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force.” Section 30 of the Advocates Act, 1961, by contrast, gives every advocate on a state roll “the right to practise… in every court… and before any other tribunal or person legally authorised to take evidence.” The wrinkle that has decided this fight, over and over, is timing: Section 30 was only notified and brought into force on June 15, 2011 — four years after the Senior Citizens Act was enacted. Courts have reasoned that a “notwithstanding” clause can only override laws already in force when it was written, so it cannot displace a right that did not yet legally exist. Section 30, arriving later, is read to prevail.

A Decade of Unanimous High Court Rulings

What began as one High Court’s interpretation in 2014 has since been adopted, independently, by five more benches across the country:

Punjab and Haryana High Court (2014)

In Paramjit Kumar Saroya v. Union of India, 2014 SCC OnLine P&H 10864, the court first articulated the timing argument above, holding that Section 30’s later commencement meant it could not be overridden by Section 17’s notwithstanding clause.

Kerala High Court (2021)

A two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice S. Manikumar and Justice Shaji P. Chaly went further in Adv. K.G. Suresh v. Union of India, 2021 SCC OnLine Ker 1686, declaring Section 17 itself “ultra vires the Constitution and void” — a ruling widely read as striking the bar down nationwide, not just within Kerala.

Delhi High Court (2022)

In Pawan Reley v. Union of India, 2022 SCC OnLine Del 3221, the Delhi High Court agreed that Section 17 cannot stand in the way of legal representation before the Maintenance Tribunal — and specifically asked the Central Government to reconsider the provision in light of Section 30. That request, made in September 2022, has not produced a legislative fix.

Karnataka High Court (2023)

Justice M. Nagaprasanna, in K. Srinivas Ganiga v. Union of India, 2023 LiveLaw (Kar) 253, declared Section 17 ultra vires Section 30 after a Deputy Commissioner had refused to let a petitioner’s advocate appear in an appeal — the same fact pattern that would recur in Calcutta three years later.

Bombay High Court, Goa Bench (2025)

Justice Valmiki Menezes, in Santosh Savlaram Morajkar v. Sumitra Savlaram Moraskar, 2025:BHC-GOA:919, stated in terms that Section 17 “stands struck down as being ultra vires Section 30 of the Advocates Act, 1961 in relation to the entire territory of India,” and remanded the underlying case for fresh consideration with legal representation permitted.

Calcutta High Court (2026)

Justice Krishna Rao’s ruling in Kripal Singh Khurana v. State of West Bengal and Ors., WPO/202/2026 — reported as 2026 LiveLaw (Cal) 322 — expressly followed the Punjab and Haryana, Kerala, and Delhi precedents, making West Bengal the latest state where the bar no longer holds.

Why Parliament Hasn’t Moved

None of this has produced a change to the statute book. A Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens (Amendment) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2019 and referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment, which submitted its report in January 2021 — but the bill has not been passed, and Section 17 remains on the statute exactly as written in 2007. Every one of the six rulings above operates as a High Court’s declaration for its own jurisdiction (or, on the broadest readings out of Kerala and the Bombay High Court’s Goa Bench, a claim to nationwide effect) — but none is a Supreme Court judgment binding every tribunal in the country under Article 141. In practice, a Maintenance Officer or a Tribunal presiding officer in a state whose High Court has not yet ruled can still point to the bare text of Section 17 and refuse a lawyer entry, and a senior citizen without the resources or awareness to invoke six High Courts’ worth of precedent may simply be turned away, exactly as Khurana initially was.

This is not a hypothetical gap. Elder abuse complaints registered with the National Crime Records Bureau rose nearly 17% between 2023 and 2024 alone, to over 32,000 cases, and most abuse against the elderly is believed to go unreported entirely. The population these tribunals exist to serve is also growing fast, toward roughly 15% of all Indians by 2036. A procedural bar that different tribunals apply differently, depending on geography and a litigant’s ability to cite case law, is a poor foundation for a scheme meant to give the most vulnerable citizens quick, dependable relief.

What This Means for Practitioners and Families

For lawyers, the Calcutta ruling adds one more citation to an already one-sided line of authority: if a Tribunal or Maintenance Officer refuses representation, counsel can move the jurisdictional High Court armed with six consistent precedents spanning Punjab and Haryana, Kerala, Delhi, Karnataka, Goa, and now West Bengal. For families navigating a maintenance or eviction claim, a lawyer’s presence before the Tribunal is very likely permissible wherever the dispute arises in India today — but that “very likely” is doing real work in a matter as sensitive as an elderly parent’s housing or subsistence, so the safest course is to raise the point explicitly and place these rulings before the Tribunal at the outset, rather than assume the bar has been uniformly lifted. For policymakers, the record is itself an argument: when six High Courts agree unanimously on a point of statutory conflict over twelve years, treating the amendment as still “under consideration” looks less like caution and more like inertia — borne, in the meantime, by the elderly litigants the Act was written to protect.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a lawyer now represent me before a Maintenance Tribunal anywhere in India?

Six High Courts — Punjab and Haryana, Kerala, Delhi, Karnataka, Bombay (Goa Bench), and now Calcutta — have all held that Section 17’s bar on legal representation cannot override an advocate’s right to appear under Section 30 of the Advocates Act, 1961. This covers most of the country in practice, but since the Supreme Court has not yet ruled and Section 17 has not been repealed, a Tribunal in a state without a direct High Court ruling could still, in theory, attempt to enforce the bar.

What does Section 17 of the Senior Citizens Act actually say?

It states that no party to a proceeding before a Tribunal or Appellate Tribunal constituted under the Act shall be represented by a legal practitioner, “notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force.”

Why do courts say Section 30 of the Advocates Act overrides Section 17?

Because Section 30 was brought into force on June 15, 2011, after the 2007 Act was enacted, courts have held that Section 17’s “notwithstanding” clause — which by its own terms can only override laws already in force when it was written — cannot displace a right created later in time.

Is there a Supreme Court ruling that settles this nationally?

Not yet. Every ruling to date, including Kerala’s and the Bombay High Court’s broadly worded 2025 decision, is a High Court judgment. Only a Supreme Court decision, or a legislative amendment to Section 17 itself, would resolve the question with binding, nationwide finality.

What happened to the 2019 bill to amend this Act?

The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was introduced in the Lok Sabha and examined by a Parliamentary Standing Committee, which reported back in January 2021. It has not been passed, and Section 17 remains in its original 2007 form.

What should a senior citizen do if a Tribunal refuses to let their lawyer appear?

Counsel can point the Tribunal to the six High Court rulings summarized above and, if the Tribunal still refuses, approach the jurisdictional High Court by writ petition, as the petitioners did in Karnataka, Delhi, Kerala, Goa, and now West Bengal.

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