Father’s Admitted Relationship Alone Didn’t Prove Paternity: Karnataka HC Sets Aside DNA-Test Order, Sends Application Back for Fresh Review

The respondent, a minor child represented by her natural guardian, sought maintenance from the petitioner in proceedings under Section 125 CrPC. The petitioner admitted having had a physical relationship with the child’s mother but denied being the child’s biological father.

The Family Court allowed the respondent’s application under Section 45 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, and directed the petitioner and child to provide blood samples for DNA testing. The petitioner challenged that order, relying, among other things, on an earlier civil-court rejection of a similar request and his rights to privacy and bodily autonomy.

Section 125(1)(b) CrPC and the corresponding Section 144(1)(b) BNSS recognize the maintenance entitlement of both legitimate and illegitimate minor children, but the person’s liability to maintain must still be established on the evidence.

Where applicable, Section 112 of the Evidence Act raises a presumption of legitimacy that cannot be displaced merely by evidence of the mother’s relationship with another man; the relevant question includes non-access between the spouses during the period of possible conception.

Under Bhabani Prasad Jena v. Convenor Secretary, Orissa State Commission for Women, Ashok Kumar v. Raj Gupta, Aparna Ajinkya Firodia v. Ajinkya Arun Firodia, and Ivan Rathinam v. Milan Joseph, DNA testing is not routine: the court must first assess the existing evidence and, if it is insufficient, determine whether an “eminent need” for testing exists after balancing the interests involved.

Article 21 privacy and bodily autonomy require any intrusion to be legitimate, necessary, and proportionate; a prior refusal of a particular mode of proof does not, without a final adjudication of paternity, necessarily determine that issue or operate as res judicata.

The Court accepted that paternity was relevant to deciding the maintenance claim and that the petitioner’s admission supplied a factual basis for examining the mother’s assertion. But neither the child’s welfare nor the need to decide maintenance established, by themselves, that DNA testing was necessary.

The Family Court had not assessed whether the relationship could be established through other evidence, considered the possible application of Section 112, or undertaken the required privacy-and-proportionality assessment. Nor could the earlier rejection of a DNA request be treated as a conclusive determination of paternity without examining the nature and effect of that order.

The impugned order therefore did not satisfy the evidentiary-necessity and proportionality requirements.

The Family Court was directed to examine the effect of the earlier civil proceedings, the applicability of the statutory presumption of legitimacy, the other available evidence, and the necessity of DNA testing. If testing is considered necessary, it must record reasons showing that the dispute cannot adequately be resolved by other evidence and that the intrusion is proportionate.

The application is to be decided expeditiously, without being influenced by the High Court’s observations.