Children can’t pay for adults’ choices: Court upholds DNA test in maintenance case

Holding that the children cannot become casualties of adult choices, the Delhi High Court has upheld an order directing the DNA test of children in a maintenance dispute. The law cannot permit history to be rewritten only because a person’s present social circumstances make him uncomfortable about his past, it added.

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma was hearing a man’s plea challenging the DNA test to determine the paternity of three children, claiming they were not his.

“Today, when the petitioner’s legally wedded wife holds public office, that circumstance appears to have compelled him to attempt to retrospectively erase a chapter of his life and his alleged voluntary choices. The law, however, cannot permit history to be rewritten merely because a person’s present social circumstances make him uncomfortable about his past,” the court said on July 3.

The court noted that when weighed between the “anxiety of an alleged biological father” to preserve his and his first wife’s reputation, and the right of the children to know their parentage, the constitutional conscience wouldn’t hesitate to hold that the former may yield where necessary. “The latter, however, cannot be sacrificed merely to avoid social discomfort,” the ruling said.

The petitioner was stated to have claimed no connection with the children and “did not know” how public documents came to record him as their father, besides the photographs that “came into existence depicting him celebrating their birthdays”.

“..or how evidence has emerged suggesting that he had been residing with the woman for a considerable period, then it is difficult to appreciate why he should fear a DNA test. On the contrary, if his assertions are true, a DNA test would conclusively vindicate his stand and protect his reputation in society,” the order stated.

Family feud over paternity

The case arose from a maintenance petition filed in 2014 by a woman claiming that she had married a man in 1991 and that three children were born from the relationship. She claimed that the man lived in Delhi, abandoned the family in 2005, and stopped providing financial support.

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Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said that the consequences of such conduct must be borne by adults themselves and not by the innocent children.

It was alleged that the petitioner did not return even after a month, and when the woman went to his native place, she found that he had another woman.

The petitioner, on the contrary, refuted the claims of having ever married or lived with the woman. He claimed that he had been legally married to his present wife since 1986 and that the three children were not his.

He claimed that the complainant woman forged and fabricated photographs and documents, and the children were not his children. He relied on a family court decree from Bihar declaring another woman his legally wedded wife and denying any marital relationship with the complainant woman.

During the maintenance proceedings, the complainant woman’s children sought a DNA test to establish his paternity. They relied on photographs, school records, voter and ration cards, and witness testimony showing the man as their father. A family court had allowed the DNA test, prompting the man to challenge that order before the high court.

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The high court noted the contention that if a DNA test was allowed, it would cause grave injustice to the petitioner and his legally wedded wife and uncover facts, only because the truth may cause embarrassment.

“In this aspect, this Court is conscious that the first wife may herself be an innocent victim of the circumstances created by her husband’s conduct and cannot be blamed for the same. Any consequences that may cause her suffering are indeed deeply unfortunate. However, sympathy for her situation cannot become a justification to deny justice to three other innocent children. A perceived hardship cannot be remedied by inflicting hardship upon innocent children who had no role in creating the situation in which they now find themselves,” the order said.

‘Children’s identity comes before reputation’

The ruling highlighted that the rights and interests of children cannot be subordinate to the considerations of social stigma or reputational concerns of the adults involved, since the issue of parentage of the children also concerns their identity and has a bearing on their legal rights, including their claim for maintenance.

Holding that his Court is not dealing merely with an issue of maintenance, the order added that it is also dealing with the issue of identity of the children, which carries profound emotional, psychological, and legal significance for them.

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“Needless to say, financial support may sustain the body, but the knowledge of one’s parentage and identity sustains the individual as a person. The dignity, sense of belonging, and emotional security associated with such identity are beyond measure,” it added.

Justice Sharma remarked that the present case, therefore, is one where the law must approach the adjudication from the standpoint of the innocent children and not merely through the prism of an adult seeking to avoid embarrassment or reputational discomfort.

The order underscored that the decision to bring the children into this world and confer upon them an identity of parentage was that of the two adults, one of whom has now sought to distance himself from and deny those very decisions to protect his own and his legally wedded wife’s social identity and reputation.

“When children approach a Court asserting that they have throughout been known and recognised as the children of a particular person, and place on record public documents and other material reflecting such parentage, the Court cannot shut its eyes to such a claim merely because the validity of the marriage between the adults is itself under dispute,” the court said.

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The direction for DNA testing, the order observed, aims to determine the issue of paternity, which lies at the heart of the controversy in the present proceedings seeking maintenance from the petitioner, and is not intended to reopen the issue of the validity of the marriage between the petitioner and the woman.