Dehradun:
Veteran politician ND Tiwari was forced to submit a blood sample today at his home for a paternity suit pending against him. A doctor and a judge reached the 86-year-old's home in Dehradaun this morning upon the orders of the Supreme Court, which had given Mr Tiwari till today to voluntarily share his sample. If he resisted, the court said last week, officials would be within their rights to coerce him into participation.
The paternity suit against Mr Tiwari, a Congress leader who has held many important posts including Governor of Andhra Pradesh, is brought by Rohit Shekhar, who is 32, and alleges that Mr Tiwari fathered him while he was in a relationship with his mother, Ujjwala Sharma.
Through a lengthy court battle which began in 2008, Mr Tiwari has fought those claims and argued that a paternity test conducted under court orders would amount to a violation of his privacy.
Last week, the Supreme Court dismissed Mr Tiwari's claim that he was too old to give a blood sample.
"It does not mean that blood is not running in his body," the Judges had said. "If you are so clean, you go and give your blood sample," they stressed.
The Supreme Court judges, did, however, agree to Mr Tiwari's request to maintain confidentiality of the test, which will be carried out at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics laboratory in Hyderabad.