Can Senior Citizens Recover Digital Assets Gifted to Children Under Section 23?

Examining Whether India’s Elder Protection Law Extends to Cryptocurrency, Demat Holdings, Digital Wallets and Other Intangible Wealth

By Sanjay Kumar Pilla | Topic: Elder Rights and Digital Property Law | Practice Area: Senior Citizens’ Rights, Property Law, Digital Assets and Succession

Introduction

Section 23 could arguably stretch to cover certain digital or intangible assets, since Section 2(f) defines “property” broadly. As of the date of publication, the authors have not identified a reported Supreme Court or High Court decision directly deciding whether cryptocurrency or other digital assets can be recovered under Section 23 — so any such claim is, for now, a statutory argument rather than a settled judicial remedy. A senior citizen would still need to prove that the transfer was subject to a condition of care and that the condition was breached.

When Section 23 of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 is discussed, the situation that generally comes to mind is that of an elderly parent transferring a house or land to a son or daughter on the understanding that the child will take care of them, and seeking cancellation of the transfer when that care is not provided. But the wording of the Act raises a different question in today’s circumstances: does the same protection potentially apply when what has been transferred is not a house or piece of land, but an asset that exists in digital or intangible form?

Section 23 does not say that it applies only to immovable property. It refers to the transfer of “property”. Section 2(f) of the Act also gives the term a broad meaning. It includes movable and immovable property, tangible and intangible property, and rights or interests in such property.

This matters because a person’s wealth may now be held in forms that do not resemble traditional property. A senior citizen may have mutual fund units in a demat account, digital gold purchased through an online platform, money held in a digital wallet, or cryptocurrency. There can also be valuable online businesses, domain names and monetised digital accounts.

Suppose a parent transfers one of these assets to a child because the child has agreed to provide care and support. The child later stops doing so. Can the parent approach the Maintenance Tribunal under Section 23 and ask for the transfer to be cancelled?

There is a plausible statutory argument that the answer could be yes, at least for some forms of intangible property. But the practical problem is much more complicated. A house has a physical identity and usually a registered document showing the transfer. A digital asset may be recorded by a depository, controlled through an online account, or, in the case of cryptocurrency, subject to practical control through private keys or credentials.

Answering that question turns out to involve two very different kinds of difficulty — one legal, one practical — which this article takes up in turn below.

The Supreme Court’s decisions in Sudesh Chhikara v. Ramti Devi and Urmila Dixit v. Sunil Sharan Dixit provide the starting point. Neither case directly decides the position of cryptocurrency, digital wallets or other digital assets.

Quick Facts You Need to Know

As explained above, Section 2(f)’s broad definition of “property” is what opens the door to a digital-asset argument in the first place — but the door being open is not the same as a settled remedy.

Digital assets, however, are not one legally identical category. A demat holding, a self-custodied cryptocurrency wallet, digital gold, an e-wallet balance and a monetised online account are each held and controlled in different ways, and the Section 23 analysis will depend on the particular legal right transferred, not merely on the fact that it is accessed digitally. That distinction runs through the rest of this article.

Two Supreme Court decisions frame the legal test that would apply to any such claim, digital or otherwise: Sudesh Chhikara v. Ramti Devi, which holds that a transfer to a child is not automatically conditional and that the care obligation must be established, and Urmila Dixit v. Sunil Sharan Dixit, which upheld the Section 23 remedy where that obligation was supported by contemporaneous documents. Neither decision addresses cryptocurrency, digital wallets or other digital assets directly; both are discussed in full below.

Scope of the Issue

The issue in this article is deliberately narrow. The question is not whether every digital asset automatically comes within Section 23. The question is whether the existing framework for cancelling a conditional transfer could potentially extend to particular intangible assets, and what difficulties arise when the asset is controlled through a digital system.

In a conventional property dispute, the senior citizen can usually produce a registered deed and records relating to the property. With digital property, the evidence and the method of control can be very different.

A demat holding may be recorded by a depository or intermediary. Cryptocurrency may be recorded on a blockchain, while practical control in a self-custodied arrangement may depend heavily on possession of the relevant private keys or credentials. An online account may be valuable, but the account itself may be governed by platform terms while the underlying monetisation rights, intellectual property, receivables or business may constitute separate legal interests.

So, even if the statutory language is broad enough to support an argument, the real difficulty may arise when the senior citizen asks the Tribunal to enforce the remedy.

What Does Section 23 of the Senior Citizens Act Provide?

The Core Provision: Section 23

Section 23(1) applies where a senior citizen, after the commencement of the Act, transfers property by gift or otherwise, subject to a condition that the transferee will provide basic amenities and basic physical needs to the transferor.

If the transferee subsequently refuses or fails to provide those amenities and needs, the transfer is deemed to have been made by fraud, coercion or undue influence. The transfer can then be declared void by the Tribunal at the option of the transferor. Section 23(2) separately deals with the senior citizen’s right to receive maintenance from an estate that has been transferred, subject to the conditions stated in that provision.

There is no express limitation in Section 23(1) saying that the provision applies only to houses, land or other immovable property. Section 2(f), meanwhile, expressly uses wider language and includes intangible property and rights or interests in property.

This is the main reason a claim involving digital wealth cannot be dismissed simply because the asset has no physical form. At the same time, the broad definition of property does not by itself establish that every digital asset falls within Section 23.

It still does not answer the harder part of the claim. Whatever the asset, the senior citizen must establish the conditions laid down in Section 23(1), and the legal character of the particular asset must be considered. In practical terms, the claim turns on three questions: was there a transfer of property, was it subject to the required condition of care, and did the transferee subsequently refuse or fail to provide the required basic amenities and physical needs?

What the Supreme Court Has Held

Sudesh Chhikara v. Ramti Devi

Sudesh Chhikara v. Ramti Devi & Anr., Civil Appeal No. 174 of 2021, decided on 6 December 2022. The facts of Sudesh Chhikara show why the existence of a transfer alone is not enough.

Ramti Devi had executed registered release deeds in favour of her children relating to agricultural land. She later approached the Maintenance Tribunal and sought cancellation of one of the transfers, alleging that her children were not taking care of her.

The Maintenance Tribunal declared the release deed void and the High Court upheld that decision. The Supreme Court, however, examined whether the requirements of Section 23(1) had actually been established.

The Court identified two separate requirements. There had to be a transfer subject to a condition that the transferee would provide basic amenities and physical needs, and there had to be a subsequent refusal or failure to provide them.

The Court also made an important point about transfers to children and close relatives. Such transfers are not automatically conditional. A parent may transfer property simply out of love and affection. Therefore, a senior citizen who claims that the transfer was made in return for an obligation of care must establish that condition.

In Ramti Devi’s case, the condition had not even been pleaded in the relevant manner. The Supreme Court therefore held that the requirements of Section 23(1) had not been satisfied and dismissed the petition.

The same principle would matter in a digital-asset dispute. If a parent transfers cryptocurrency, mutual fund units or another digital asset to a child, the fact of transfer by itself would not establish the right to cancellation. The parent would still have to show that the transfer was connected to a condition requiring care and that the condition was subsequently breached.

Urmila Dixit v. Sunil Sharan Dixit

Urmila Dixit v. Sunil Sharan Dixit & Ors., Civil Appeal No. 10927 of 2024, 2025 INSC 20, decided on 2 January 2025. The facts in Urmila Dixit were different.

Urmila Dixit had purchased the property in 1968. In September 2019, she executed a Gift Deed in favour of her son. On the same day, a promissory note, or vachan patra, was also executed. That document recorded the son’s obligation to take care of his mother during her lifetime and contemplated the possibility of taking back the gift if he failed to do so.

The Gift Deed itself also contained references to maintenance and provision for the donor’s peaceful life.

When the dispute reached the Supreme Court, the Court did not accept the narrower approach taken by the High Court. It considered the Gift Deed together with the contemporaneous promissory note or vachan patra, applied the principles laid down in Sudesh Chhikara, and treated the beneficial purpose of the legislation as relevant to its interpretation.

The Court found that the two requirements under Section 23 were satisfied. The obligation of care had been established and the breach had also been shown. The Gift Deed was consequently quashed and possession was restored to the senior citizen. Urmila Dixit therefore establishes that the Tribunal can order possession of a transferred asset to be restored where the statutory conditions are met — but it does so in the context of immovable property with a registered deed. It does not establish how, or whether, a comparable restoration order would operate for self-custodied cryptocurrency, digital accounts or other electronically controlled assets, where there is no registrar or physical possession to hand back.

The Supreme Court’s 2 January 2025 judgment in Urmila Dixit remained the final word on those facts: a curative petition against it was subsequently dismissed by the Supreme Court on 29 April 2026. The 2025 judgment therefore continues to be the operative authority discussed here, now with that curative dismissal behind it.

The contrast between the two decisions is useful. One shows the importance of proving the care obligation; the other shows what can happen when that obligation is supported by the documents and the evidence.

Sudesh Chhikara says that the care condition cannot simply be assumed because property was transferred to a child. It has to be proved.

Urmila Dixit shows that where the obligation and its breach are established through the documents and evidence forming part of the transaction, the beneficial purpose of the Act should not be defeated by an excessively narrow reading of those documents.

The judgments therefore leave the specific digital-asset question untouched. They tell us how to examine the transfer and the care obligation, but they do not establish whether the same remedy would operate when the property is held electronically or through a private key.

Can Section 23 Apply to Digital Assets?

The answer is likely to depend on what exactly was transferred and who controls it.

Table: How different digital assets may fare under a Section 23 claim (statutory possibility only; none of this is judicially settled).

Asset	Potential Section 23 Argument	Main Difficulty
Demat securities	Relatively stronger	Nature of transfer/remedy
Mutual fund units	Possible	Establishing conditional transfer
Digital gold	Possible	Underlying contractual arrangement
E-wallet balance	Depends on underlying right	Account/asset distinction
Cryptocurrency	Plausible statutory argument	Private keys/enforcement
Domain name	Fact-dependent	Transferability/control
YouTube/online account	Highly fact-dependent	Platform terms/account rights

 

As the table reflects, demat securities sit at one end because they are recorded through a regulated depository; cryptocurrency sits at the other because self-custodied control and private keys leave no intermediary to enforce against. Digital gold, e-wallets and monetised online accounts fall in between, depending on the underlying contractual or custodial arrangement. The sections below take each category in turn.

Demat Holdings and Mutual Fund Folios

Demat holdings and mutual fund investments may present fewer practical difficulties than self-custodied cryptocurrency.

Depositories, depository participants and registrars generally maintain account statements, transaction records and other records showing securities and transfers. This can give the senior citizen evidence of what was transferred and when. The record created by these institutions can also help distinguish a dispute about the asset from a dispute about the reason for the transfer. An account statement may establish that securities changed hands, but it will not necessarily establish that they were given in exchange for care. That part of the case would still have to come from the surrounding documents and circumstances.

If a Tribunal accepts that the transfer was made subject to a condition of care and that the condition was breached, the involvement of a regulated intermediary could also make implementation of an order more practical. That practical advantage, however, should not be confused with a settled legal position on the Tribunal’s power to restore a particular digital holding.

Cryptocurrency and Private Wallets

Cryptocurrency presents a much harder problem.

If a parent transfers cryptocurrency to a child’s self-custodied wallet, there may be no conventional document recording the transfer. Evidence could instead consist of a blockchain transaction, messages between the parties, bank records relating to the purchase, exchange statements, or other surrounding evidence. The blockchain record may establish that the transaction happened, but it does not by itself explain the bargain between the parent and child. Messages, bank records, exchange records and other contemporaneous material may therefore become important when the Tribunal is asked to determine why the transfer was made.

As a matter of statutory analysis, the digital nature of the asset may alter the evidentiary and enforcement questions without necessarily altering the Section 23 conditions that the senior citizen must establish. Whether a particular digital asset falls within the provision, and what form of restoration a Tribunal could order, remain judicially unsettled questions.

There is then a second problem: control. A Tribunal declaring a transfer void is not the same as the senior citizen actually recovering the asset. With a self-custodied wallet, practical enforcement may depend heavily on the transferee’s cooperation or access to the relevant private keys or credentials — a declaration on paper may achieve little if the child who controls the wallet simply refuses to move the funds.

Digital Gold, E-Wallets and Other Accounts

Digital gold, e-wallet balances and UPI-linked accounts should not be treated as one legal category. Their position depends on the underlying asset or right being transferred and the contractual or custodial arrangement through which it is accessed. In some cases the senior citizen may be able to identify an account, balance or provider, while in others the digital interface may only provide access to an underlying financial or property interest.

Where a bank, platform, custodian or other intermediary is involved, that intermediary may provide a more identifiable point through which an order could potentially be implemented. The intermediary may make implementation more manageable, but it does not itself establish that the underlying asset falls within Section 23 or that the Tribunal has power to order a particular form of restoration.

Online businesses, YouTube channels, domain names and other monetised digital accounts create another difficulty. Some of these arrangements can have considerable financial value, but an account itself may be governed by platform contractual terms. The underlying monetisation rights, intellectual property, receivables or business interests may be legally distinct from the account used to access them. Whether a change in control of such an account amounts to a “transfer of property” for Section 23 has not been directly tested in a reported decision.

How Can a Senior Citizen Prove the Transfer?

A digital-asset claim may also depend heavily on electronic evidence. Depending on the asset and transaction, relevant material may include transaction records, account statements, blockchain transaction hashes, exchange records, bank records, emails, WhatsApp or other messages, and contemporaneous agreements. Sections 61 to 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 govern the admissibility of electronic records, but admissibility only establishes that a record exists and is authentic — it does not by itself prove what the parties agreed. A useful way to separate the evidentiary steps is: first, the existence and authenticity of the electronic record; second, whether it shows that the asset was transferred; third, whether the transfer was subject to a condition of care; and fourth, whether that condition was breached. A blockchain hash or a WhatsApp message may satisfy the first two steps without going anywhere near the third or fourth. A transaction record may establish that an asset changed hands; contemporaneous communications and documents are usually what is needed to establish the condition and its breach.

What Should Senior Citizens Do?

The absence of a direct ruling on the application of Section 23 to digital assets does not, by itself, prevent a senior citizen from making a claim. It simply makes the evidence, the legal character of the asset and the way the claim is framed more important.

For any future transfer, the safest course is to put the arrangement in writing. If a senior citizen is handing over a demat holding, digital gold, or anything else because the recipient has agreed to provide care, that understanding should not be left to memory.

The exact form of the document may vary with the asset, but the important point is that the obligation should not be left entirely to an informal understanding. A written agreement, letter or other clear communication may become important evidence if a dispute later arises. Urmila Dixit illustrates the importance of contemporaneous documents forming part of the transaction when the existence of the care obligation is disputed.

Taken together, the two cases suggest a practical lesson. The reason for the transfer should be recorded when the transaction happens, rather than reconstructed only after a dispute has begun.

If proceedings have already become necessary, Section 23 can still be considered where its requirements are arguably met. Section 2(f) may support an argument involving intangible property, but the result will depend on the particular asset, the evidence and the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.

Evidence should also be preserved as early as possible. For demat investments, this could include account statements and transaction records. For cryptocurrency, records of transfers, exchange transactions, bank payments, transaction hashes and communications may be important. For digital gold or wallet-based assets, records maintained by the relevant service provider could become significant. The same principle applies to communications between the parties. A message in which the recipient expressly agrees to provide care may be more useful than a later statement that the transfer was understood to be conditional. Contemporaneous evidence is not automatically conclusive, but it can make the factual question considerably clearer.

Conclusion

The Senior Citizens Act gives a senior citizen a possible remedy when property is transferred in return for care and that obligation is later broken. Since Section 2(f) includes intangible property, there is a plausible statutory basis to argue that qualifying intangible assets should not be excluded merely because they are digital. That, however, is a statutory argument rather than a settled judicial conclusion.

The real difficulty is enforcement. A demat holding, digital wallet and cryptocurrency are controlled in very different ways, and Section 23 has not yet been tested directly in relation to these assets. The specific application of Section 23 to digital assets therefore remains judicially unsettled. Until a court squarely addresses cryptocurrency or a comparable digital asset, the Act’s broad definition of property will keep inviting the argument — but it will be the evidence and the practicalities of control, not the statutory text, that decide whether any individual claim actually succeeds.

References

1. Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 — Sections 2(f) and 23. Read the Act (India Code): https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/2033
2. Sudesh Chhikara v. Ramti Devi & Anr., Civil Appeal No. 174 of 2021, Supreme Court of India, judgment dated 6 December 2022. Read the judgment: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/168917655/
3. Urmila Dixit v. Sunil Sharan Dixit & Ors., Civil Appeal No. 10927 of 2024, 2025 INSC 20, Supreme Court of India, judgment dated 2 January 2025 (curative petition dismissed 29 April 2026). Read the judgment: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/194091211/
4. Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 — provisions relating to electronic records and their admissibility, including Sections 61–63.
5. Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Bill, 2007.

 

Important article references of Senior Citizens:

1. From Duty to Law: Safeguarding Senior Citizens in India — senior citizens’ legal rights in India

 

2. How Senior Citizens Can Legally reclaim property gifted to uncaring children

 

3. Grandparents’ Right to Maintenance — maintenance rights of grandparents

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

1. Can a senior citizen cancel a gift given to a son or daughter if they stop taking care of them?

Yes, Section 23 can provide a remedy where the property was transferred subject to the condition that the transferee would provide basic amenities and physical needs, and that condition was subsequently breached.

 

2. Does the maintenance condition have to appear in the Gift Deed?

The condition must be established by evidence, but it need not necessarily be proved only from the Gift Deed itself. In Urmila Dixit v. Sunil Sharan Dixit, the Supreme Court considered the Gift Deed together with a contemporaneous undertaking (vachan patra) recording the care obligation. Sudesh Chhikara v. Ramti Devi makes clear that the condition cannot simply be presumed from the transfer itself, and High Courts have taken differing views on whether it must be expressly recorded in the transfer document. The important question is whether the totality of the evidence establishes that the transfer was subject to the required condition under Section 23.

 

3. Can Section 23 apply to property other than a house or land?

Yes, at least in principle. Section 23 is not limited to houses or land — ordinary movable property such as jewellery, vehicles, bank deposits or fixed deposits can equally be the subject of a Section 23 claim, provided the transfer was subject to the required condition of care. The same statutory logic that supports a claim over movable property is what extends, more contentiously, to intangible and digital assets, discussed below.

 

4. Can a senior citizen seek cancellation if the gifted asset is in a demat account?

There is a plausible argument that Section 23 could apply because demat holdings represent identifiable securities and property interests within an established depository framework. However, the exact remedy and the Tribunal’s power to direct restoration of such holdings would depend on the facts, the nature of the transfer, the evidence of the care condition and applicable law.

 

5. Can a senior citizen recover cryptocurrency under Section 23?

Courts have not yet directly decided this issue. Section 2(f) uses broad language that includes intangible property, which supports a statutory argument in appropriate cases. However, as of the date of publication, the authors have not identified a reported Supreme Court or High Court decision directly deciding whether cryptocurrency, particularly self-custodied cryptocurrency, can be recovered under Section 23. The senior citizen would still have to prove the statutory care condition and its breach, and enforcement may present additional difficulties because practical control can depend on private keys or credentials.