Delhi High Court: In a petition filed to seek directions to respondents to conduct a door-to-door survey to collect data about the total number of senior citizens in Delhi and for directions to construct a new senior citizen home in every district of Delhi, the Division Bench of Manmohan, ACJ and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, J. directed the Chief Secretary to decide the matter in accordance with law within twelve weeks.
Apart from the collection of data about senior citizens and the construction of new senior citizen homes in every district of Delhi, the petitioner also sought a direction for Respondent 3, the Delhi Police to maintain separate data on offences being committed against senior citizens.
The petitioner pointed out that there were only two old age homes in Delhi — one in Bindapur, run by the Delhi government on a Private-Public partnership model, and the other in Lampur, funded by the Delhi government. It was also mentioned that an additional senior citizen home was being run by the Delhi Urban Shelter Development Board.
The petitioner contended that the respondents were in breach of Sections 9 and 22(2) of the Senior Citizen Act, 2007 and that he had filed several representations with the respondents but they had not been disposed of tll date.
The petitioner contended that senior citizens are neglected and discriminated against by their own families which is why they need special care, love, and affection.
The Court, while disposing of the petition, directed the present petition to be treated as a representation to the Chief Secretary and directed him to decide the representation in accordance with law and preferably within twelve weeks.
[Salek Chand Jain v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2024 SCC OnLine Del 4410, Order dated 30-05-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For Petitioner — Advocate Dinesh P. Rajbhar
For Respondent — CGSC Vineet Dhanda, Advocate Abhishrut Singh, Advocate Abhijit Singh, Advocate Parvinder Chauhan, Advocate Aakriti Garg, Advocate Anshula L Bakhru