M A I N   N E W S

DNA test out, confirms Rohit is Tiwari’s son
Huge relief, says Rohit; conspiracy, laments ex-Uttarakhand CM
R Sedhuramans
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, July 27
Dealing a severe blow to the image of former Uttarakhand Chief Minister ND Tiwari, the Delhi High Court today announced that DNA tests have confirmed that he is the biological father of 33-year-old Rohit Shekhar.

The finding has virtually brought to an end nearly five years of a bitter legal battle waged by Rohit for vindicating his stand that he was born out of a relationship his mother Ujjawala Sharma, now a retired lecturer from Delhi University, had with Tiwari.

Tiwari (86), who has also been the Congress Chief Minister of undivided Uttar Pradesh and a Union Minister, had stridently opposed the contentions of Rohit and Ujjawala, taking each and every order of the HC that had gone against him to the Supreme Court.

“It is now clear that I am not an illegitimate child,” Rohit said after the DNA test results were announced. He, however, said he was “neither happy nor sad. It is now my right to use his (Tiwari’s) surname. I will take what is rightfully mine.”

Talking to The Tribune, Rohit said it was a “huge relief for me as Mr Tiwari has suffocated and humiliated us.” He expressed the hope that the SC would remove the words like “bastard, concubine and keep” from legal parlance.

He said Tiwari used to be a family friend when Ujjawala’s father Prof Sher Singh was Minister for Defence Production in the Congress government at the Centre in the 1970s before developing a relationship with his mother. Tiwari’s courtship with Ujjawala lasted around eight years.

Rohit said he was born at the official residence of his grandfather at 3, Krishnamenon Marg, New Delhi. Ujjawala divorced her husband, BP Sharma who is 87 now, in 2006 following several years of separation.

Rohit had filed a paternity suit in the Delhi HC in September 2007, but he withdrew it when the court was dismissing it. He again approached the HC in April 2008 with the plea that he should be declared as the biological son of Tiwari and Ujjawala, who had separated from her husband. Subsequently, the case made several rounds in the HC and the SC with both the parties challenging every single order that went against them.

Ujjawala (67) sought to scotch the speculation that she and Rohit were after Tiwari’s wealth. “We don’t want anything. We will accept whatever the court orders,” she said. She had been a Congress activist when she had come close to Tiwari.

Hours before Justice Reva Khetrapal opened the sealed cover containing the DNA test results of Tiwari, Rohit and Ujjawala at 1600 hrs and announced the findings, a Division Bench of the HC had heard and rejected the arguments of Tiwari’s counsel pleading for restraining Justice Khetrapal from going ahead with declaring the result.

“DNA report is a scientific evidence and the truth should come out as early as possible. How can you say that the piece of evidence can’t be opened? It is an open trial and the evidence has to be recorded,” the Division Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice AK Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw had observed. After the Division Bench ruling, Tiwari also tried to stall the announcement of the result by approaching the SC. However, he failed to take up the matter with an appropriate SC Bench due to several reasons.