No relief for ND Tiwari in paternity suit

The Delhi high court on Friday reserved its order on an appeal filed by senior Congress leader N D Tiwari against a decision by its single judge to impose costs of Rs 75,000 on him in a paternity suit filed by a man claiming to be his biological son.

A bench comprising Justices Vikramjeet Sen and Mukta Gupta reserved the order after hearing arguments from the counsels of both sides.

Appearing for Tiwari, senior counsel Rajiv Nayyar submitted that earlier the court had allowed Rohit Sekhar, the man claiming to be the leader's son, to withdraw the suit but not with permission to add news facts into it.

However, when he filed a fresh suit, he added certain new facts relating to his attempts to meet Tiwari in 2005. This (addition) had not been permitted by the court then, the counsel argued.

Challenging his arguments, Sekhar's counsel Sudhir Nandrajog said incorporation of new facts is not a dilution of the suit as the cause of action or bone of contention remained there.

The 84-year-old Tiwari has approached the division bench after a single judge of the high court had on August 13 dismissed his plea seeking deletion of certain paragraphs from the paternity suit and imposed costs of Rs 75,000 to be paid to Shekhar.

Tiwari contended that the judge erred in rejecting his plea and imposing the costs without issuing notice to the other party.

"The single judge miserably failed to appreciate that the dismissal of his application along with the imposition of the costs of Rs 75,000 is untenable in the eyes of law and contrary to the principles of natural justice and also setting a draconian precedent," the former Andhra Pradesh governor said in his appeal.

Tiwari had sought deletion of the paragraph from the suit in which Shekhar had alleged that the veteran leader avoided meeting him at Delhi airport when he made an attempt to do so in 2005.

Earlier, the leader had refused to undergo a DNA test and denied ever having any physical relationship with the petitioner's mother.