The Allahabad High Court has said that a DNA test to check who the father of a child is cannot be ordered casually or just because someone raises a doubt during a court case. The court made it clear that such tests can only be directed in very specific situations where there is strong and clear evidence that the husband and wife could not have lived together during the time the child was conceived.

Justice Chawan Prakash made these observations while dismissing a petition filed by a man named Ramraj Patel. Patel had claimed that the girl born to his wife in December 2012 was not his biological child. He argued that his wife had been living at her parents’ home since May 2011, and therefore, there was no possibility of the child being his.

Earlier, a Special Chief Judicial Magistrate had refused to order a DNA test. Patel appealed this order before the Additional Sessions Judge in Varanasi, but the appeal was also dismissed. After that, Patel approached the High Court, challenging both orders.

In his petition, Patel said that he married his wife in April 2008, but she stayed with him at their matrimonial home for only one week. He further claimed that his wife was educated and working as a teacher in an Inter College, and she did not want to live with him because he was an “illiterate villager”. Based on these claims, he argued that the child born in 2012 could not be his, and therefore, a DNA test should be conducted.

The High Court, however, did not accept his arguments. In its order dated November 21, the court said that a DNA test cannot be ordered merely because a person doubts the paternity of a child. The court siad that such a direction can only be given in rare and exceptional cases.

It must also be clearly proven that there was absolutely “no chance of cohabitation” between the husband and wife during the period when the child would have been conceived. The High Court agreed with the lower courts and dismissed Patel’s petition, saying that his claims were not strong enough to justify forcing a DNA test on the child.