The matter arose from maintenance proceedings initiated by a woman who asserted that she had cohabited with the petitioner in a relationship akin to marriage and that three children were born from that association. The petitioner, however, contended that he had been in a valid subsisting marriage since 1986 and denied any relationship with the woman or the children. In support of their claim, the woman and the children presented photographs, family records, school documents, voter and ration cards, and witness testimony that identified the petitioner as the father of the three minors.
The Family Court, after considering the prima facie material, directed the parties to undergo DNA testing for the purpose of ascertaining paternity. The petitioner challenged this direction before the Delhi High Court, arguing that the test was sought merely to malign his family’s reputation and would adversely affect the image of his legally wedded wife.
Observations of the High Court
Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma, delivering the judgment, began by emphasizing that the rights and interests of children cannot be made subordinate to the social stigma or reputational concerns of adults. The Court observed that reputation cannot serve as a shield against the truth and that children must not become casualties of the choices made by their parents.
The Bench noted that the law does not permit a citizen to invoke the right to personal liberty while simultaneously refusing to accept the corresponding obligation of accountability. It stressed that the children involved were entirely innocent and had no agency over the circumstances of their birth or the relationship that gave rise to their existence.
Referring to the documentary evidence placed on record, the Court pointed out that the children’s school records, identity documents and the social recognition they enjoyed all indicated the petitioner as their father. It further held that the children were not the authors of the circumstances surrounding their birth, nor of any events that transpired before or after their birth between the two adults whose relationship brought them into the world.
Justice Sharma warned that if one of the alleged parents later seeks to evade the consequences of his own choices, the law cannot allow the burden to be shifted onto the children. The consequences of such conduct must be borne by the adults themselves. The Court articulated that when two adults choose to enter into a relationship and children are born therefrom, the choices made by those adults cannot defeat or eclipse the rights of those children to know their biological parentage.
Legal Reasoning and Implications
The High Court clarified that the issue before it was not the validity or morality of the relationship between the adults, but whether the children were biologically fathered by the petitioner. It held that the children’s right to identity and the consequential legal rights flowing therefrom—including claims for maintenance—could not be subordinated to an adult’s fear of social embarrassment.
The Bench further observed that adopting a contrary view would create a scenario wherein a person, after having lived in a relationship outside a legally subsisting marriage or in a live‑in relationship and having brought children into the world, could subsequently deny parentage and leave the children to spend their entire lives in uncertainty regarding their identity and lineage. Such an approach would deprive children of an answer to a fundamental question that goes to the root of their identity: who their biological parents are.
Linking the right to know parentage with the child’s dignity, the Court stated that this right is intrinsically connected to the child’s identity. Consequently, where a serious and bona fide dispute regarding paternity arises and there exists prima facie material justifying a DNA test, the Court cannot altogether foreclose a scientific examination merely because the relationship between the adults may not constitute a valid marriage in the eyes of law.
Operative Outcome
In light of the foregoing reasoning, the Delhi High Court dismissed the petitioner’s challenge and upheld the Family Court’s order directing DNA testing. The judgment reaffirms that the determination of biological parentage, when genuinely contested, must yield to the child’s paramount interest in knowing their origins, irrespective of any reputational apprehensions harboured by the alleged parent.