Prayagraj: The Allahabad high court has set aside a family court order granting maintenance to a minor girl and directed that a DNA test be conducted first to establish her biological parentage. The direction came on a plea by the man claiming he was not the child’s father, a request earlier rejected by the Sonbhadra family court. While issuing the order, the court observed that in cases involving peculiar facts, both parents and children have the right to know the “biological truth”. It added that uncertainty about a child’s parentage can have lifelong implications for both. Justice Madan Pal Singh passed the order on March 17 while hearing a criminal revision filed by Jawahir Lal Jaiswal against the family court’s March 2025 ruling. The trial court had directed Jaiswal to pay Rs 3,000 per month as maintenance from the date of application and Rs 6,000 from the date of judgment until the girl’s marriage. His plea for DNA testing was turned down. Before the high court, Jaiswal claimed his wife had left him in Feb 2000 and started living with another man. He said the girl, born in 2011, was from that illicit relationship. He argued that since he had no physical relationship with his wife after 2000, he could not be the biological father. The court examined trial court records and found discrepancies. While the maintenance plea stated the mother stayed at her matrimonial home in 2010 and delivered the child on January 1, 2011, the birth certificate showed the child was born on Nov 20, 2009. Another medical record showed she gave birth to a second child in July 2017, naming her alleged partner as the father. When questioned, the girl’s counsel admitted that the woman had been living with her alleged partner after 2011 but insisted the first child was Jaiswal’s. The HC said the records made it impossible to determine when and how often the woman returned to her husband’s house after 2000, how long she stayed, and who the biological father of the girl was. Finding merit in the father’s claim, the court held that a DNA test was necessary to ascertain paternity. It noted that while the Supreme Court, in R Rajendran vs Kamar Nisha (2025), held that DNA tests cannot be ordered as a matter of course, the present case had exceptional circumstances. It also cited a 2024 HC ruling in Sachin Agarwal vs State of UP, which held that denying maintenance due to unresolved paternity issues violated basic human rights. Setting aside the family court’s order, the high court directed that DNA testing of the father and the minor girl be conducted first. The family court has been asked to decide the maintenance application afresh within three months of receiving the test report.
