Relief to teen after Bombay HC rejects father's plea for DNA test

In a relief to a teenager, the Bombay High Court rejected his father’s petition seeking that he be made to undergo a DNA test to prove paternity, and observed that children have the right not to have the legitimacy of their birth questioned frivolously in courts of law.

The Nagpur bench of the high court noted that the father, who is gainfully employed, was trying to avoid his liability to pay the maintenance to the unfortunate child by asking him to undergo a DNA test.

The court of Justice G A Sanap passed the order on March 10.

The petitioner working with Western Coalfields Limited (WCL) in Chandrapur had married a woman from the same company in 2006 and their son was born on April 27, 2007.

However, he left his wife after some years due to a marital dispute. The woman had approached the petitioner for Rs 5,000 in maintenance, which he refused alleging that the boy was not his biological son.

The petitioner challenged the 2021 order of the Chandrapur district court, which had quashed the JMFC's order directing the boy to undergo a DNA test at the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory in Nagpur.

The petitioner then approached the high court seeking a DNA test of the boy. While hearing the case, Justice Sanap observed that children have the right not to have the legitimacy of their births questioned frivolously in courts of law.

Simply saying that the applicant (boy) is not his son will not be sufficient. In his cross-examination, he has denied suggestion that after birth of the boy, he suspected his wife’s character, the court said.

The father, who is gainfully employed, is trying to avoid his liability to pay the maintenance to the unfortunate child. In order to deny the right to get maintenance, he has been asking the son to undergo the DNA test, the court observed.

The order directing the DNA test in such matters must be need-based and has to be passed in an exceptional case, it said while dismissing the petition.

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