Court rejects Tiwari’s plea on fine

NEW DELHI - Rejecting Congress leader N.D. Tiwari’s plea, the Delhi High Court Friday directed him to pay Rs.75,000 penalty, as directed by the court, within two weeks’ time.

A division bench of Justices Vikramjit Sen and Mukta Gupta passed the order on Tiwari’s petition seeking modification of the single bench order imposing Rs.75,000 cost on him during the hearing of a paternity suit against him.

“The review petition is dismissed. You are just wasting the court’s time, therefore the earlier single bench order stands,” the court said, adding that Tiwari has to pay the amount within two weeks.

A single-judge bench of the high court Dec 23 had asked the 85-year-old leader to undergo a DNA test in the paternity suit filed by Delhi-based Rohit Shekhar (31), who claims to be his biological son born out of the leader’s alleged relationship with his mother Ujjwala Sharma.

The court turned down Tiwari’s plea that he cannot be forced to undergo the DNA test, saying it is the right of a child to know his or her biological father, and imposed a fine of Rs.75,000 on him.

However, Tiwari later approached the double-bench, which has now upheld the earlier order.

This was his third attempt to avoid the fine.

Shekhar has filed an application before Justice Gitta Mittal seeking modification of the earlier order on the DNA test saying the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology at Hyderabad, which was authorised to conduct the test, was no more conducting such tests.

He asked the court to designate Centre for DNA, Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) in Hyderabad to conduct the test.

The court has put up the matter for next date of hearing March 1 as the judge did no take up the issue.

Delhi High Court’s Joint Registrar Deepak Garg Feb 19 had deferred to March 8 a decision on the date for the DNA test.

He also issued notice to the Centre for Cellular Microbiology in Hyderabad seeking an explanation for not discussing the test procedure with the court.

The formalities as to how and where Tiwari’s blood sample will be drawn for his DNA test would be determined March 8 by Garg in the presence of counsel of the two parties.

Tiwari, who had held the posts of chief minister of undivided Uttar Pradesh and later Uttarakhand, had opposed the paternity suit.

Tiwari, who last year resigned as Andhra Pradesh governor in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct, countered the claims and said he never had any physical relationship with Ujjwala, who is also a Congress activist.