Children's Right to Know Parentage Cannot Yield to an Alleged Father's Reputational Anxiety, Holds Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court upheld a Family Court's DNA test order, ruling that three children's right to know their biological father outweighs an alleged father's concern for his own reputation and his legally wedded wife's public standing.

The High Court of Delhi has dismissed a petition challenging a Family Court direction for DNA testing in a maintenance dispute, holding that three adult children's assertion of biological parentage cannot be foreclosed simply because an alleged father fears the proceedings will damage his reputation and that of his politically active wife. Dr. Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma, sitting singly, pronounced the judgment on 3 July 2026 in Ravi Kumar v. Geeta Devi & Ors. The court found that the question of paternity was directly in issue in proceedings under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, that prima facie material supported the children's claim, and that no alternative evidence could answer the question without a DNA examination. The petition, along with a pending application, was dismissed.

The Dispute Before the Court

Geeta Devi filed a petition under Section 125 of the Cr.P.C. before the Principal Judge, Family Court (North-West), Rohini Court, Delhi, on 4 August 2014. She claimed that she had married Ravi Kumar on 16 May 1991 at Shakarpur, Delhi, according to Hindu rites and ceremonies, and that three children — respondent nos. 2 to 4 — were born out of that union, in 1995, 1999 and 2002 respectively. She alleged that Ravi Kumar abandoned her and the children in 2005, and that she later discovered he had a prior marriage with one Smt. Kumkum Devi.

Ravi Kumar denied the entire case. He stated that he is a resident of Munger, Bihar, had married Smt. Kumkum Devi on 6 February 1986, and had never resided in Delhi or cohabited with Geeta Devi. He described the photographs and documents filed by Geeta Devi as forged and fabricated, and denied that respondent nos. 2 to 4 were his children.

Smt. Kumkum Devi separately filed Matrimonial Case No. 51/2016 before the Family Court, Munger, Bihar, seeking a declaration of her marital status. A judgment dated 25 July 2016 from that court declared her to be Ravi Kumar's legally wedded wife and held that no marital relationship existed between Ravi Kumar and Geeta Devi. Ravi Kumar then moved the Delhi Family Court to dismiss the Section 125 petition on the basis of that decree. The Family Court, Delhi, by order dated 5 February 2018, held that the issues raised could not be decided without evidence.

Respondent nos. 2 to 4, who by this stage were adults, then filed an application under Section 45 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, seeking a direction for DNA testing of themselves and Ravi Kumar to determine paternity. The Family Court, by the impugned order dated 13 March 2024, allowed the application, directing the SHO, PS Shakurpur, to depute a police officer not below the rank of ASI to produce the parties before the MS/HOD Forensic Medicine, BSA Hospital, for sample collection, with the samples thereafter to be deposited in the FSL and the report sent directly to the court within one month.

Ravi Kumar challenged that order before the High Court in CRL.M.C. 3855/2024.

Material on Record and What the Family Court Found

Before passing the impugned order, the Family Court noted the evidence already on record. Geeta Devi had placed marriage photographs allegedly depicting herself and Ravi Kumar, photographs of birthday celebrations of the children showing Ravi Kumar present, family photographs with all three children, a voter identity card and ration card reflecting Ravi Kumar as Geeta Devi's husband, and school certificates of the children — including 8th and 10th class records and school identity cards — recording Ravi Kumar as their father. She had also examined PW-2, Smt. Vijay Laxmi, the landlady of the parties, who deposed that Ravi Kumar had resided on her premises, had brought Geeta Devi there after marriage, and that the three children were born in those premises.

Ravi Kumar countered with photographs of his marriage to Smt. Kumkum Devi and the decree of the Munger Family Court. The Family Court observed that the Munger decree addressed the legal status of the parties inter se but did not foreclose the possibility that Ravi Kumar had access to Geeta Devi during the relevant period. The children had themselves moved the application, were now adults, had a right to know their paternity, and had placed sufficient prima facie material before the court.

Submissions in the High Court

Before the High Court, Ravi Kumar's counsel argued that the Family Court had acted mechanically, contrary to the Supreme Court's decision in Goutam Kundu v. State of West Bengal: (1993) 3 SCC 418, which holds that DNA testing cannot be directed as a matter of course. It was contended that evidence was still being led, Geeta Devi had not completed cross-examination, and the documents had not been proved in accordance with law. Counsel also relied upon the Munger decree and argued that the Family Court had not assigned reasons for disregarding it. A further argument was that Geeta Devi had admitted a previous marriage but had not disclosed details of her previous husband or established that she had no access to him at the time of the children's births.

Counsel for the respondents submitted that the Munger decree dated 25 July 2016 had been set aside by the High Court of Judicature at Patna in Miscellaneous Appeal No. 643 of 2017, vide order dated 11 November 2024, and the matter had been remanded for fresh adjudication. The Patna High Court found the decree to have been passed ex-parte without considering the marriage certificate and photographs filed by Geeta Devi. The respondents contended that paternity was directly in issue in the Section 125 proceedings, scientific examination was indispensable, and Section 125(1) of the Cr.P.C. expressly extends the right to maintenance even to illegitimate children, making the paternity determination foundational.

A subsequent development arose on 1 July 2026, two days before judgment was pronounced. Ravi Kumar's counsel appeared and, by CRL.M.A. 18684/2026, informed the court that the Family Court, Munger, had passed a fresh judgment on 30 May 2026 in the remanded proceedings. That judgment again held that Ravi Kumar and Smt. Kumkum Devi are legally wedded spouses, married on 6 February 1986, and that Geeta Devi had failed to establish her alleged marriage with Ravi Kumar. It further held that since the marriage between Ravi Kumar and Smt. Kumkum Devi was valid and subsisting, any alleged marriage between Ravi Kumar and Geeta Devi could not have been legally valid.

The Court's Reasoning

Dr. Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma drew a sharp distinction at the outset of the analysis. The question before the court was not whether Ravi Kumar and Geeta Devi had a valid marriage — that question had, by the time of the judgment, been answered against Geeta Devi by the Munger Family Court's fresh judgment of 30 May 2026. The question was whether a relationship existed between Ravi Kumar and Geeta Devi that resulted in the birth of respondent nos. 2 to 4, and whether they are his biological children.

The court held that the Section 112 of the Indian Evidence Act presumption was simply not engaged on the facts. Ravi Kumar's own case was that he had been in a valid, subsisting marriage with Smt. Kumkum Devi since 1986. The controversy was therefore not one where a party sought to rebut the statutory presumption of legitimacy within marriage by DNA testing. The issue was an entirely different one: whether respondent nos. 2 to 4, who may have been born outside a valid marriage, are the petitioner's biological children. The direction for DNA testing was not aimed at unsettling Section 112 but at resolving that separate question.

On the legal standard for ordering DNA tests, the court examined the Supreme Court's recent decision in Chaturbhuj Pradhan v. Amar Pradhan: 2026 SCC OnLine SC 994, which synthesised earlier decisions including Goutam Kundu, Dipanwita Roy v. Ronobroto Roy, Aparna Ajinkya Firodia v. Ajinkya Arun Firodia, and Ivan Rathinam v. Milan Joseph. The court extracted the governing principle from Chaturbhuj Pradhan: the test is whether the result of the DNA test is directly in issue and whether any other evidence on record can substitute for the answer that scientific examination alone can provide, and whether ordering it is in the best interest of the parties and justice.

Applying that test, the court found that paternity was directly in issue; it was not collateral to the Section 125 proceedings. No other evidence presently on record could categorically resolve the question. The prima facie material — photographs, school records, public documents, the landlady's testimony — pointed to a relationship but could not conclusively establish biological parentage. Against that backdrop, the Family Court's direction was not mechanical.

The court then turned to Ravi Kumar's argument that the DNA test would damage his reputation and that of his legally wedded wife, who holds public office. The court rejected this emphatically. It observed that Ravi Kumar simultaneously claimed he had no connection whatsoever with respondent nos. 1 to 4, while also arguing that a DNA test would harm his reputation. The court found this internally incoherent: “if his assertions are true, a DNA test would conclusively vindicate his stand and protect his reputation in society.”

The court observed that the perceived reputational harm was, prima facie, a consequence of circumstances reflected in the evidence and documents already on record. The judicial process cannot be asked to refrain from uncovering facts merely because the truth may cause embarrassment. The court was careful to acknowledge that Smt. Kumkum Devi may be an innocent victim of her husband's conduct. Even so, sympathy for her could not become a reason to deny justice to three children who had no role in creating the circumstances of their birth.

On Personal Liberty and Parental Accountability

The court addressed a broader doctrinal question: where constitutional jurisprudence increasingly recognises an adult's autonomy to choose a partner or live in a relationship outside marriage, what happens to children born of such a union when one adult later denies parentage?

The court held that the right to personal liberty and personal responsibility are inseparable companions. A citizen cannot consciously enter into a relationship, bring children into the world, and later reject parenthood. The school records, identity documents and social recognition that reflected Ravi Kumar as the father of respondent nos. 2 to 4 were not created by the children themselves; they were created by the adults from whose alleged union the children were born. The decision to bring them into the world and to confer upon them that parental identity was made by the two adults. One of those adults now sought to erase that chapter to protect his and his wife's social standing. The law, the court held, could not permit the burden of that conduct to fall upon the innocent children.

The court went further. If courts were to permit a person, after living in a relationship and fathering children, to deny parentage simply by asserting reputational concerns and the absence of a valid marriage, those children would spend their entire lives in uncertainty about their identity and lineage. The right of a child to know his or her biological origins is intrinsically connected to identity and dignity. Where a serious and bona fide paternity dispute exists and prima facie material supports an inquiry, the court cannot foreclose scientific examination solely because the adult relationship did not constitute a valid marriage.

Outcome

The High Court upheld the Family Court's impugned order dated 13 March 2024 in its entirety, finding it suffered from no illegality or perversity. The court held that the question of paternity of respondent nos. 2 to 4 is directly in issue in the Section 125 Cr.P.C. proceedings, that prima facie material indicating a relationship between the petitioner and Geeta Devi and reflecting the petitioner as the father of respondent nos. 2 to 4 has been placed on record, and that no other evidence presently available can answer whether respondent nos. 2 to 4 are the biological children of the petitioner. CRL.M.C. 3855/2024, along with the pending application CRL.M.A. 14726/2024, was dismissed. The court expressly stated that nothing in the judgment amounts to an expression of opinion on the merits of the case pending before the Family Court.