Recently, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that the right to privacy of an individual cannot outweigh a child’s fundamental right to ascertain the identity of his biological father.
Justice Archana Puri delivered the ruling while dismissing a revision petition filed by a man challenging a trial court order that had directed a DNA test on the plea of a child claiming him to be his father. The High Court observed that while the right to privacy and dignity of the man deserved recognition, it could not eclipse the overriding interest of the child in establishing his parentage.
The matter stemmed from a petition under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, filed by the minor through his mother seeking maintenance. The man denied paternity, asserting that the child was born during the subsistence of his mother’s previous marriage and was therefore presumed legitimate under Section 112 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. He argued that this statutory presumption barred any further inquiry into paternity.
The Court, however, clarified that Section 112 was aimed at protecting children born within subsisting marriages from being stigmatized as illegitimate. In the present case, the plea for paternity determination had been initiated by the child himself upon attaining adulthood, which rendered the presumption inapplicable.
It was noted that the child and his mother consistently maintained that the petitioner was the biological father, narrating that she had lived as a tenant in his house in 1988 and developed a relationship, following which the child was born in 1990. The trial court, in 2015, allowed the request for a DNA test.
The High Court emphasized that the child was fully aware of the potential social consequences of the DNA test, yet insisted on establishing the truth. The Court remarked that if the petitioner and the child were truly unrelated, no prejudice would be caused to the petitioner by undergoing the test. On the contrary, the DNA analysis would conclusively establish the facts and eliminate uncertainty, preventing reliance on mere legal presumptions.
At the same time, the Court disapproved of the Trial Court’s directive authorizing police force to secure the petitioner’s DNA sample, terming it unnecessary. Instead, it directed that in case the petitioner declined to provide the sample, the trial court should record his reasons and proceed to draw appropriate inferences based on the evidence available.
The revision petition was accordingly dismissed.
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