A petitioner seeking a direction from the Delhi High Court to the former Governor of Andhra Pradesh, N. D. Tiwari, to accept him as his natural son, has got support from his mother submitting that he was born of her relationship with the Congress politician.
The petitioner’s mother, Ujjwala Singh, made her stand clear in an affidavit filed in the Court in reply to her son’s appeal. She is a respondent in the appeal.
Meanwhile, counsel for Mr. Tiwari sought and got more time from the Court for filing a reply to the appeal. The matter will now come up for hearing on March 11.
The petitioner, Rohit Shekhar, has filed the appeal against a Single Bench judgment dismissing his plea.
Justice S. N. Dhingra had last year dismissed his suit saying that it was time-barred and that the Court did not have the jurisdiction to hear it.
Justice Dhingra had held that since the plaintiff had made his mother a defendant in his suit just to create the jurisdiction of the Court as his mother stayed in Delhi, the Court could not exercise territorial jurisdiction on the basis of residence of such a defendant.
Counsel for Mr. Tiwari had argued before Justice Dhingra that that the Court had no territorial jurisdiction to hear the suit because his client was a resident of Andhra Pradesh.
In the appeal, Shekhar argued that the Single Bench was wrong in dismissing the suit on the ground of limitation assuming that Delhi had no jurisdiction.
He submitted that the Single Bench should have either returned or rejected the suit on merit instead of dismissing it on the ground of limitation.
