DNA tests & inheritance harassment |
A few days back, this scribe came across one aggrieved family who revealed that, adopting conversational strategies, their paternal uncles to manipulate, threaten and control them messaged that they could humiliate them during court proceedings by adopting an immoral strategy to get a Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test conducted to challenge their paternity, since they were not stepping back to claim their due inheritance rights [when their father had already died in 1995]. It is a typical example of creating a pretext to deprive women/orphans of claiming their due legal share in their father’s legacy. Being a woman, it is a significant challenge and has serious implications for women’s right to inheritance. It is becoming a common practice in our society that whenever a suit for inheritance is filed, the paternal family steps forward negatively before the Court and challenges the legitimacy of the child by moving an application requesting the conduct of DNA analysis of the child and mostly tampers with the results too.
Though the fact is that a challenge to paternity or legitimacy could be made only by the putative father himself [and that too within the limited........