Child's right to know parentage outweighs father's privacy: HC

Time of India

9 hours ago

C
handigarh: In a legal dispute balancing individual privacy against the right to know one's parentage, the Punjab and Haryana high court ruled that the latter takes precedence.
"The right of privacy, as such, cannot override the right of the child and vest interest in his favour," the HC has held.
The court also clarified that if the person refused to undergo DNA testing, the trial court would be free to draw an adverse inference based on his conduct and other evidence.
"Why should there be any hesitation to undergo this test is not coming forth," the HC observed, noting that photographs and testimonies already on record suggested familial ties.
A DNA test would provide clarity and assist the court in reaching the right conclusion without leaving the matter to presumptions, the HC clarified.
Justice Archana Puri passed these orders while upholding an order dated Nov 27, 2015, passed by a lower court in Haryana directing a DNA test in a long-running paternity dispute. The petitioner in this case had approached the HC challenging the lower court's order.
The case stems from a suit filed by a child (who has now attained majority) who consistently asserted that he is the biological son of a man (identity protected) and his mother.
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The man, whom the boy referred to as his father, however, persistently denied the claim, terming the boy a "stranger" and resisting any attempt to establish paternity through scientific means.
The boy's claim traces back to events in 1988 when, according to him, his mother and the man began cohabiting as husband and wife, while the man was living in her mother's house as a tenant. The boy was born from that relationship in 1990 and lived with both until 2000.
Supporting him, the woman admitted to the relationship and backed her son's plea.
However, the petitioner argued that the boy was born during the woman's earlier marriage with her then husband, from whom she obtained a divorce in 1994. He cited Section 112 of the Indian Evidence Act, which presumes the legitimacy of a child born within wedlock, to oppose compulsory DNA testing.
The HC, however, observed that unlike cases where a spouse resists parenthood during the subsistence of marriage, this matter involved an adult child seeking to establish his own parentage.
In such circumstances, Section 112's presumption of legitimacy cannot override the child's right to know the truth of his origins.
"So far as the stakeholders are concerned, it is pertinent to mention that the child, who asserts defendant No.1 to be his father, is major and while asserting paternity, he is thus very well aware of the consequences of the order, which may downsize his position and that of his mother in the society.
Even the mother of the plaintiff is of mature age and she is bound to be well aware of the consequences of the action of her son and his claim regarding the paternity issue.
They having come forward unhesitatingly has to be considered," observed the HC while dismissing the revision petition challenging the lower court order.
The HC further clarified that the DNA test is a surer test to affix the paternity. If the boy and the man are strangers in any manner as asserted, no injustice shall be done to defendant No.1 by conducting this test. Rather, if he is the father, his position will be put beyond doubt by the testing and the paternity as pleaded shall be ascertained. "Why there should be any hesitation to undergo this test is not coming forth. Of course, the evidence is to be led by both sides, but the question arises, when the paternity can be affixed by a surer test, then why a decision based on legal presumption or gathering of inference, on the basis of the evidence or any gap, on account of misjudgment, be left," the HC held in its detailed order dated Aug 12.
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