A Kashmiri woman has changed her counsel with the hope to get speedy justice and to prove that an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer is the biological father of her female baby reported KNT.
As per the victim, an IAS officer married her and during wedlock, a baby girl was born. Later, she and her child were abandoned by the said officer.
After hearing the counsel for victim Advocate Mir Naveed Gul, the Court of Second Additional Munsiff, Srinagar, issued fresh directions to defendant Sundhanshu Pandey to appear in person for the recording of the statement.
The court directed Pandey to appear in person before it and file in writing whether he consents if the court contemplates passing an order for his DNA test to check whether the girl born from the victim is his biological child or not.
“Yes, the court has issued these directions afresh. Sandhanshu Pandey has served at various posts in J&K including Divisional Commissioner Jammu,” Advocate Mir told the news agency Kashmir News Trust.
In another case filed in the High Court, wherein the woman demanded monthly maintenance in the same issue, Justice Sanjey Dhar had ordered last year for the parentage suit to be completed first in the lower court.
As per the filings in the court, it is learnt that the woman had challenged an order passed by the Judicial Magistrate First Class (2nd Additional Munsiff), Srinagar, that deferred the proceedings till the outcome of the civil suit in which question of paternity of the petitioner is in issue.
In the petition, it was alleged that in 2010, when Pandey was holding the position of Finance Secretary in the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, he developed a relationship with the woman in Srinagar.
In May 2010, Pandey converted to Islam, whereafter he entered into wedlock with the woman. The woman pleads that their daughter was born on 12 April 2011, however, a few months later, in October 2012, Pandey was transferred to New Delhi and he left the woman and minor in Srinagar.
As per the court documents, the woman also claimed to have visited the native place of the officer, in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow, where they came to know that Pandey was already a married man with two children and a practicing Hindu.
The marriage between the woman and Pandey then dissolved by default.
However, Pandey refuted all the allegations and denied marrying the woman. The allegations made in the petition are just a figment of imagination and a device to scandalize his reputation and image, he responded in the court.
“It is averred that in the civil suit, mother of the petitioner has admitted that she had entered into wedlock with another person on 1st August, 2010 which ended in divorce in October, 2010,” Pandey responded in the court. And that the minor was a child from the woman’s first marriage.
Both the parties presented conflicting birth certificates and medical records of the child, with two different names as father. Then the high court had ordered for the finalization of the parentage suit first before passing any order for maintenance.