84-yr-old woman gets back home after 35 yrs in court

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Jullietta Antoinetta Torcato can finally move into her own flat. After spending 35 years of her life and almost Rs8 lakh in the fight to regain her Bandra home, the 84-year-old, living alone in the city, finally got justice yesterday.

The Supreme Court ordered her tenant, Suleiman Ishmael, to vacate the flat that he has been occupying since 1972.

Torcato is happy that her ordeal is over. “I was doing the rounds of the courts since 1972,” she said. “I even had to approach the criminal court. It has been harrowing. But I am relieved now.”

In 1972, Torcato let out her 2BHK, 800 sq ft ground floor Bandra flat to Ishmael for Rs550. She was living with her brother then. The same year, her tryst with the courts began. She was forced to knock on the doors of the criminal justice system after she was abused, spat at, and turned away by Ishmael when she went to ask him for the rent. The court took cognisance of her complaint but let Ishmael off for a fine of Rs110.

But the rents still did not come. Years passed and Torcato, who hails from Goa, continued staying with her heirs — two nephews and a niece — in their flat. After one nephew died and the others got married, she decided to renew her fight.

In 1980, she went to the civil court, which fixed a rent of Rs360 and ordered Ishmael to pay it. In 1984, Torcato appealed to the small causes court to get her flat vacated, saying it was convenient for her to live on the ground floor. In 1991, the court directed Ishmael to leave. 

But he appealed to the Bombay high court, which scrapped the eviction order. Ishmael argued in court that Torcato did not require the flat since her one of her nephews was dead and the other niece and nephew were living separately. 

That judgment took a toll on her, and Torcato suffered a paralytic stroke in 1997. Despite the setback, however, her resilience finally won the day. On Tuesday, a Supreme Court bench of Justice BP Singh and Justice HS Bedi said: “One cannot compel the owner of the premises, which exclusively belongs to her, to share accommodation with a co-owner of hers in another premises.”

“The appellant, being the owner of the premises, her need being bona fide and reasonable, it would be unfair to compel her to share the accommodation in another premises,” they said.  “We hold that the high court was in error in concluding that the bona fide need of the appellant did not subsist.