CHILDREN HAVE RIGHT NOT TO HAVE THEIR LEGITIMACY QUESTIONED IN COURT: SC

Noting the trauma and pain that a child has to undergo when his paternity is questioned in court by his own father, the Supreme Court has held that children also have right to privacy and not to have their legitimacy questioned frivolously in court which must refrain from directing DNA tests in a routine manner.
The tendency of parents to sacrifice the interest of children in their legal battle for divorce by trying to prove the charge of adultery and the child becoming the focal point of war between the spouses.
It’s said a child should not be lost in its search for paternity and Section 112 of Evidence Act to presume legitimacy was to protect the children so that precious childhood and youth is not lost in a quest to know about one’s paternity.
It is undeniable that a finding as to illegitimacy, if revealed in a DNA test,would, at the very least adversely affect the child psychologically.
It can cause not only confusion in the mind of the child but a quest to find out that the real father is and a mixed feeling towards a person who may have nurtured the child but is not the biological father.
Not knowing who one’s father is creates a mental trauma in a child. One can imagine, if, after coming to know the identity of the biological father, what greater trauma and stress would impact on a young mind.

SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB

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