Family Court lacks authority for extramarital paternity claims; civil court jurisdiction.
Last Updated on February 5, 2025 by NewsDesk SLC
The Supreme Court pointed out that the Family Court does not have the authority to listen to a paternity claim derived from extramarital matters.
The court commented that since the jurisdiction of the Family Court is limited to marriage matters, a claim of paternity derived from an extramarital relationship must be submitted to a regular civil court.
The bank, composed of Judges Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan, was listening to a case in which the defendant, a legitimate son of his mother and RK, presented a plea before the Family Court that sought a proof of paternity of the appellant. The respondent said that the appellant was his biological father, with whom his mother had an extramarital matter.
The marriage relationship between the mother of the respondent and RK was indisputable, and both had access to each other at the time the respondent was conceived.
Despite a concurrent finding stating that the defendant was the legitimate son of RK, the Family Court restored the maintenance procedures of section 125 CRPC against the appellant. Unsatisfied with the approval of the Superior Court of Maintenance Procedures, the appellant appealed before the Supreme Court.
Before the Supreme Court, the appellant argued that since the marriage between the defendant’s mother and RK was indisputable, the paternity claim could not be done against him, since paternity falls on RK and his wife. In addition, he argued that the paternity plea was not maintained before the Family Court, since the court lacked jurisdiction to decide on such a claim in the absence of a matrimonial relationship between the appellant and the mother of the defendant.
According to the arguments of the appellant, Judge Kant’s judgment concluded that the Superior Court made an error in defending the defendant’s paternity claim against the appellant. The court emphasized that since there was no marriage relationship between the appellant and the mother of the defendant, the Family Court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the claim of paternity.
He clarified that the jurisdiction of the Family Court is limited to disputes derived from marriage relations and does not extend to claims based on alleged extramarital issues.
The court referred to the case of Renubala Mohana v. Mina Mohanty (2004), where it was argued that a family court cannot entertain a paternity claim unless there is a dispute regarding the marriage relationship of the child’s mother.
