The Supreme Court has ruled that a DNA test cannot be routinely ordered in every paternity dispute even if the wife is said to be in an adulterous relationship, as the aggrieved husband is duty-bound to prove that he had no sexual “access” to his wife woman at the time the child was conceived.

The court said Section 112 of the Indian Evidence Act imposed a presumption of the child’s paternity on the father during the subsistence of a marriage, which must be rebutted with strong cogent evidence.

The court said a DNA test could be ordered only in exceptional cases, otherwise it would cause severe trauma to a child and the violation of their right to privacy.

“The fact that a woman is living in adultery would not by itself be sufficient to repel the conclusive presumption in favour of the legitimacy of a child. Therefore, shreds of evidence to the effect that the husband did not have intercourse with the wife at the period of conception, can only point to the illegitimacy of a child born in wedlock, but it would not uproot the presumption of legitimacy under Section 112,” a bench of Justices V. Ramasubramanian and B.V. Nagarathna said in a judgment.

The court “access” would be in the contest of sexual intercourse, or impotence or death of the husband.