Dear Learned Experts,
We live in Hyderabad.
I've purchased an apartment in Vizag (A.P.) in 2006 in my mother's name (my mother passed away in 2008). My mother in law has been living in that apartment ever since it was purchased, without paying any rent. We don't have any rental agreement since we just let her live there for free just based on family relations/goodwill.
In addition, I've been regularly sending her money once a month for her personal maintenance, and also separate amounts for paying property taxes, etc.
However, about a year ago, we've discovered recently that she has involved in some serious moral controversy that's still under trial in a separate criminal case, due to which she spoiled her relationship with her entire family (my side as well as my wife's side, my wife and all her relatives including my MIL's own mother support us morally).
So, we asked her to vacate the apartment about 8-9 months ago. She plainly refused to vacate and when we tried to put some oral family pressure on her through my wife and our relatives on my wife's side, she filed an injunction against us in the court claiming wrongfully (and without any proof) that we sent goons to remove her forcefully (personally no one from my side of the family has even visited her casually since the moral issue, nor have we sent anyone to her) and that we can only evict her through a legal process.
The injunction case has been running for about 8 months now without any progress, and she has managed to drag the process without anything happening until now (sometimes she doesn't turn up, some other times the judge doesn't turn up, some other times her advocate asks for a postponement, etc..) To top the trouble, we live in Hyderabad (My dad is 70+ yrs old) and the case is in Vizag, so we have to depend on relatives in Vizag to represent us (causing hardship to them too).
Meanwhile, She sent a mediation message through her lawyer saying she'll think of vacating if we pay her 5lacs + legal expenses. We refused outright since we didn't agree with the reasonability or morality of that 'deal'.
We recently filed an eviction notice through our lawyer, but she sent a reply notice through her lawyer claiming that she has been paying rent to our 'agent' without even mentioning the name of that non-existent agent, and demanding that we should pay her 5 lacs for the 'mental and physical agony' that we caused, whereas she's the one causing enormous mental agony to us, both because of this unjust and ridiculous case and also because of her continued immoral behavior outside of this case..
The judicial system seems to be ridiculously advantaged towards squatters and occupiers, since once someone has occupation of your property, it's next to impossible to get them to vacate from your own place, more so if that person is ready to slap silly cases in the court and enjoy the property for free while prolonging the case - magistrate, district court, tribunals, high court, etc.. with silly and baseless/unprovable claims and employing procedural/technical cunningness..
Is there any better recourse to this situation, or some special techniques/clauses that can be employed to speed up the legal justice process, or do we just have to let this drag on 5-10 years from magistrate to district to state court, all while incurring legal costs and while she enjoys our apartment for free..
Thanks so much for reading and I'll really appreciate a response to this. We are only looking for a completely legal recourse.
Sincere Thanks..
