Court reserves order on paternity suit against Tiwari

New Delhi, March 11 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Thursday reserved its order on a paternity suit filed by Rohit Shekhar, who claims to be the biological son of scandal-hit former Andhra Pradesh governor N.D. Tiwari.

A division bench of Justices Vikramjit Sen and Manmohan Singh reserved the order on the maintainability of the petition from Shekhar, who challenged the single-judge bench order of November dismissing his paternity suit.

The single bench order stated that according to an order of Civil Procedure Code (CPC), a person has to file a paternity suit within three years after he has attained the age of majority.

Shekhar, 34, told the division bench that he did not do so owing to poor health.

Senior advocate P.S. Patwali, who argued for Shekhar, stressed that Tiwari's denial in accepting him as his son was the reason for filing this civil suit.

According to Shekhar's petition, Tiwari began neglecting Shekhar and his mother Ujjawala Sharma after 1995 and refused to meet him at Tiwari's residence in Delhi and in Uttranchal when he became the chief minister.

"I (Shekhar) don't want to take this matter out of the court but my father's attitude towards me and my mother forced me to do so," Patwali quoted him as saying.

Senior advocate Rajiv Nayyar, appearing for Tiwari, said: "The petition is out of jurisdiction and is not maintainable."

Tiwari's five-decade-old political career came to a virtual end after a news channel showed clippings of an elderly man purported to be the 86-year-old Tiwari with three young women in bed last year.

A few days later, Tiwari resigned as the Andhra governor citing health grounds.