NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has come to the rescue of a senior citizen by evicting the estranged daughter-in-law from his Yamuna Vihar property.

The apex court, in the process, upheld the verdict of the Delhi high court that a daughter in law has no special right over a self acquired property of the in-laws, against the latter's consent.

In a recent order, a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Uday Umesh Lalit also put an end to years of fighting between the woman , her in-laws and her husband by granting the couple divorce. To safeguard the rights of the single mother and her two children, SC ordered the husband to provide alternate accommodation/property in her name and pay monthly maintenance.

However the judges made it clear, she will get possession of the flat only on vacating the father-in-law's property.

SC formalized an amicable settlement between the feuding parties on an appeal filed by the woman against the Delhi HC ruling. HC had directed her to hand over peaceful and vacant possession of the property to her estranged father-in-law, the owner, dismissing her argument that as a legally wedded wife, she had a right to live in the property.

She claimed that the property was purchased out of joint family funds, and argued that under Domestic Violence Act, the property is a shared household where she has the right to reside.

But the father in law through advocate Prabhjit Jauhar filed a suit for her eviction in 2011 in the Karkardooma Court , arguing in effect that a daughter in law has no automatic right to a property self owned by the father in law, as long as it is not an ancestral home or one purchased with joint funds. Neither the Dv Act nor any other law permit the daughter in law to stay against the in laws wishes, he submitted.

