Legal Aspects of Legitimacy in Indian Perspective: an Overview

Legitimacy is the status of a child born during the continuance of a valid marriage between the mother and any man, or within 280 days after its dissolution if the mother remains unmarried, unless it is shown that the parties to the marriage had no access to each other at any time when the child could have been conceived, his birth is treated as a conclusive proof of being legitimate. The major scientific development in the area of DNA testing technology and its facts revelations has solved many interacting crime-related mysteries especially in the areas of rape, mass killing either because of natural or human agencies or in solving civil disputes specially related with the paternity of a child and in finding the identity of an individual. It has also been used in solving the cases of exchange of babies in hospitals or nursing homes. Before the advent of ‘DNA technology’, the conventional method of blood groupings test was being resorted to for the purpose of ascertaining the paternity of the child. Now the most common application of DNA testing technology has been in the area of parentage testing.