Udupi : Human Rights Protection Foundation (HRPF) president Ravindrananth Shanbhag, on Tuesday, that the district administration should take steps to protect a senior citizen Bhoja Shetty (77) who had been abandoned by his children.

Addressing presspersons here, Dr. Shanbhag said that Mr. Shetty had to give up his studies when he was 12 and work as an agricultural labour in order to assist his father and to get his sisters married. He acquired five acres of farmland under Land Reforms Act at Mudradi village in Karkala taluk.

After working for over 35 years, in 1995, as per the advice of his wife, he divided and transferred his agricultural property and his residential house among his children — five sons and two daughters. Seven years ago, he entered into an agreement with them that he be given a monthly allowance of ₹ 2,000 for his maintenance by each one of his five sons.

His two daughters are married, while three of his sons are settled in the hotel industry in Mumbai and Goa. Two years after the agreement, his sons started ill-treating him and nagging him regularly, he said.

Then, they stopped payment of monthly maintenance. Mr. Shetty had to once again start working to get two square meals a day. For the last three years, Mr. Shetty had been working as a watchman in a factory producing concrete blocks at Varanga near Mudradi, he said.

He had to get cataract operated in one of the eyes in a government hospital despite having wealthy sons. He approached the police in Hebri to help him get his monthly compensation for his livelihood as agreed upon by his sons.

The police called his sons and procured a bond that they would provide the monthly maintenance in future. But they never kept their word. Mr. Shetty approached HRPF in October 2018. A complaint was lodged with the Senior Citizens Tribunal in Kundapur. A request was made to direct Mr. Shetty’s sons to provide monthly maintenance as agreed, failing which they should re-transfer the property back to Mr. Shetty.

When notices were served on the sons, they met the Conciliation Officer appointed by the district administration for settlement in December 2018 and assured him of to providing monthly maintenance.

In December 2019, the tribunal gave its verdict directing each one of Mr. Shetty’s five sons to provide monthly maintenance of Rs. 2,000 to their father. It also ordered them to arrange for a rented accommodation for him.

Even after the tribunal’s order, none of Mr. Shetty’s sons remitted any maintenance to their father. Meanwhile, the factory where Mr. Shetty worked closed. He approached the Welfare Officer at the Deputy Commissioner’s Office for implementation of the order of the Senior Citizens Tribunal but to no avail, Mr. Shanbhag said.