CHENNAI : Justice S Vaidyanathan of the Madras High Court on Thursday raised a set of questions, a few over paternity, when a writ petition from S Amrutha of Karnataka, who claimed that former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was her biological mother, came up.The judge asked V Prakash, senior counsel for Amrutha and her two relatives, as to why his client had not sought paternity DNA test of the late Sobhan Babu, who, according to Amrutha, was her father. Prakash replied that in the present writ petition, Amrutha wanted to establish her relationship (only) with Jayalalithaa, as her mother. “This court opines that certainly the averment is going to cause great concern to the family members of Sobhan Babu,” the judge said.
Prakash claimed that Amrutha was the daughter of Jayalalithaa. He sought a directive to the State to do DNA matching of her with that of Jayalalithaa.Advocate-General Vijay Narayan submitted that the writ petition itself was not maintainable and that there could not be a roving enquiry into the matter. When the judge asked Prakash as to whether DNA matching of anyone, who claims to be the daughter/son of Jayalalithaa can be ordered to be done, he replied that Amrutha was her daughter and to prove the same, DNA matching was necessary.
The judge said the court, as a matter of right, could not order DNA matching in this case, as the issue of maintainability of this petition was yet to be argued. Moreover, if Amrutha’s plea was accepted, it will open a Pandora’s box, which will only lead to further deterioration of the privacy of Jayalalithaa.
The matter was posted for further hearing on January 5.