The Allahabad High Court recently refused to interfere with two Varanasi court orders declining a husband’s request for a DNA test to dispute the paternity of a girl born during his marriage, holding that
the statutory presumption of legitimacy remained unshaken and that no grounds were shown to justify such an intrusive direction.
The bench of Justice Chawan Prakash dismissed the criminal revision filed by Ramraj Patel, who had challenged the Special Chief Judicial Magistrate’s order dated January 18, 2021, and the Additional Sessions Judge’s appellate order dated October 7, 2021. Both courts had rejected his plea for conducting a DNA test of the daughter of his wife during proceedings under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act.
The dispute arose from a domestic violence application filed in 2015 by Patel’s wife. During those proceedings, Patel claimed that the child born to his wife in December 2012 was not his biological daughter and sought a DNA examination. The magistrate denied the request, and the appellate court upheld that decision, prompting Patel to approach the high court.
According to the materials placed before the court, the couple married on April 15, 2008. The wife lived briefly at her matrimonial home before moving back to her parental residence, returning only for short visits over the years. Patel alleged that his wife stayed away intentionally, that she accused him of an illicit relationship, and that the two had not lived together after May 20, 2011. Relying on this timeline, he argued that the child born on December 17, 2012, could not have been conceived during cohabitation.
Opposing the revision, the State and counsel for the wife argued that the courts below had correctly applied Section 112 of the Evidence Act, which treats a child born during the subsistence of a valid marriage as conclusive proof of legitimacy unless non-access is clearly established. They submitted that Patel had offered no substantive evidence to meet the high threshold required to rebut this presumption.
The high court examined the provision and noted that the law places significant weight on the legitimacy of a child, recognising it as a conclusive presumption aimed at ensuring stability within the family structure. The judgment reiterates that this presumption can be displaced only by cogent proof that the spouses had no opportunity for access during the relevant period.
Justice Prakash also referred to the Supreme Court’s decision in Ivan Rathinam v. Milan Joseph (2025), which underscores the privacy and dignity implications of compelling a DNA test. The apex court had cautioned that forcing an individual to undergo such testing amounts to an intrusion into deeply personal aspects of life and therefore must satisfy strict constitutional scrutiny. Courts, the Supreme Court held, cannot order such tests as a matter of routine.
Applying these principles, the high court found that Patel had relied solely on a general assertion that his wife did not reside with him for most of the marriage. The court held that such a claim did not establish non-access in the legal sense, nor did it justify overriding the statutory presumption.
Concluding that there was neither illegality nor irregularity in the findings of the magistrate or the appellate judge, the high court dismissed the revision petition.
