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The Madras High Court has permitted the wife of a person in a comatose condition to sell/mortgage his immovable property worth over ₹1 crore and utilise the proceeds for taking care of his medical expenses as well as the maintenance of the family, consisting of a son and a daughter.
A Division Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and P.B. Balaji reversed an order passed by a single judge who had on April 23, 2024 dismissed a writ petition filed by S. Sasikala of Chennai to appoint her as the guardian of her husband M. Sivakumar who has been in a vegetative state since early this year.
The petitioner had approached the court with a plea to appoint her as the guardian of her husband and consequently permit her to operate his bank accounts and if necessary, to sell/mortagage an immovable property owned by him at Walltax Road adjacent to Chennai central railway station.
However, the single judge ruled that a writ petition could not be entertained for appointment of a guardian especially when the Mental Healthcare Act of 2017 does not contain any provision for dealing with financial aspects. He had asked the petitioner to approach a civil court for such appointment.
Disagreeing with the view taken by him, the Bench led by Justice Swaminathan said, in a similar case, the Kerala High Court had invoked its writ jurisdiction and observed, that it was like a parens patriae jurisdiction that could be invoked when no remedy was provided under any statute for patients in comatose state.
The Bench pointed out that the writ petitioner had already spent lakhs of rupees towards the medical expenses of her husband between February 13 and April 4 in a private hospital. Now, even at home, he had to be taken care of by appointing a caretaker and availing the services of crtical care nurses.
The petitioner’s children, who had attained majority, were also made as parties in her writ appeal before the Bench and they gave their consent for appointing their mother as the guardian. The daughter broke down before the judges and said, the family would be in dire straits if her mother was not allowed to deal with the property.
Taking the facts into consideration, the judges wrote: “After an interaction with the children of the appellant, we are more than satisfied that the family is without any means and that unless the petition mentioned property is allowed to be dealt with, great hardship will be caused to them.”
Authoring the verdict, Justice Swaminathan also said: “Taking care of a person lying in comatose condition is not that easy. It requires funds… The petition mentioned property belongs to Thiru. Sivakumar. It has necessarily to be put to use for his benefit. The State is not taking care of Thiru. Sivakumar. The appellant is shouldering the entire burden. Driving the appellant to move the civil court, in our view, is not proper.”
After setting aside the single judge’s order, the Division Bench appointed Ms. Sasikala as the guardian of her husband and permitted her to deal with his property which the Bench assumed would fetch over ₹1 crore. They directed the appellant to utilise a part of the proceeds to create a fixed deposit for ₹50 lakh in the name of Mr. Sivakumar in a nationalised bank and withdraw quarterly interest.
“After his demise, it will go in three equal shares in favour of his legal heirs viz., wife, daughter and son. We have incorporated such a condition only for the benefit of the family. If only there is a fixed deposit, it will ensure that at least the survival needs are met,” the judges concluded.
