Courts cannot order DNA test as a matter of course to establish paternity, as it involves question of rights to privacy and dignity: Karnataka High Court

Courts should not order a DNA test as a matter of course to establish paternity, and such a test, when imminent, can be allowed strictly within the parameters of the Evidence Act, said the High Court of Karnataka, while quashing the DNA test ordered by a civil court in a suit for partition of properties, to ascertain the paternity of a 39-year-old man, whose parents are now aged 79 and 64.

“Compelling such tests without imminent need imperils not only the sanctity of marriage, but legitimacy of the child and also becomes violative of the fundamental rights to privacy and dignity, as per Article 21 of the Constitution,” the court said.

SC judgement

Citing Supreme Court’s judgements interpreting Section 112 of the Indian Evidence (IE) Act, which deals with birth during marriage, conclusive proof of legitimacy, Justice M. Nagaprasanna said, “It is not always necessary to conduct DNA test to ascertain whether a particular child was born to a particular person.”

Also, the High Court said that courts cannot order for DNA test in the absence of pleading in the suit with regard to “non-access of the parents of the child to each other at the relevant point in time”, while citing Section 112 of the IE Act, which states that “the fact that any person was born during the continuance of a valid marriage between his mother and any man...shall be conclusive proof that he is the legitimate son of that man, unless it can be shown that the parties to the marriage had no access to each other at any time when he could have been begotten.”

“The court, answering an application [for DNA test], must bear in mind the interwoven delicate balance between the test and the right to privacy and dignity, as ordained in the Constitution,” said Justice Nagaprasanna, while pointing out that the civil court had ignored the fact that there existed several evidences to prove that the particular defendant was born to his mother, who is the second wife to her husband.

Case details

Two sons, born to the first wife, had raised the issue of paternity before the civil court eight years after filing the suits for partition of the property of their father by questioning the legality of his second marriage, besides claiming that their father could not have got a child from the second wife as he had reportedly undergone vasectomy much before the second wife gave birth to a male child.