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9.4. The Apex Court in the case of APARNA AJINKYA FIRODIA v. AJINKYA ARUN FIRODIA4, has held as follows:

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17. According to Sarkar on Law of Evidence, 20th Edn., in the interest of health, order and peace in society, certain axiomatic presumptions have to be drawn. One such presumption is the conclusive presumption of paternity under Section 112 of the Evidence Act. Section 112 embodies the rule of law that the birth of a child during the continuance of a valid marriage or within 280 days (i.e. within the period of gestation) after its dissolution shall be "conclusive proof" that the child is legitimate unless it is established by evidence that the husband and wife did not or could not have any access to each other at any time when the child could have been conceived. The object of this provision is to attach (2024) 7 SCC 773 unimpeachable legitimacy to children born out of a valid marriage. When a child is born during the subsistence of lawful wedlock, it would mean that the parents had access to each other. Therefore, the section speaks of "conclusive proof" of the legitimate birth of a child during the period of lawful wedlock. The latter part of the section is with reference to proof of the non-access of the parents of the child to each other. Thus, the presumption of legitimacy of the birth of the child is rebuttable by way of strong evidence to the contrary.

18. The principle underlying Section 112 is to prevent an unwarranted enquiry as to the paternity of the child whose parents, at the relevant time had "access" to each other. In other words, once a marriage is held to be valid, there is a strong presumption as to the children born from that wedlock as being legitimate. This presumption can be rebutted only by strong, clear and conclusive evidence to the contrary. Section 112 of the Evidence Act is based on the presumption of public morality and public policy vide Sham Lal v. Sanjeev Kumar [Sham Lal v. Sanjeev Kumar, (2009) 12 SCC 454 :

22. Thus, where the husband and wife have cohabited together, and no impotency is proved, the child born from their wedlock is conclusively presumed to be legitimate, even if the wife is shown to have been, at the same time, guilty of infidelity. The fact that a woman is living in adultery would not by itself be sufficient to repel the conclusive presumption in favour of the legitimacy of a child. Therefore, shreds of evidence to the effect that the husband did not have intercourse with the wife at the period of conception, can only point to the illegitimacy of a child born in wedlock, but it would not uproot the presumption of legitimacy under Section 112 of the Evidence Act.

15. Coming to the instant facts, although it is not desirable at this stage of the suit to comment on the quality of the evidence adduced, this Court is constrained to look into the evidence adduced to some extent, to ascertain whether the applicant/plaintiff had made out a strong prima facie case, so as to allow Ext.P3 application for a sibling DNA test. One thing which has to be borne in mind is that, what is being enquired into is not whether the plaintiff is the daughter of Kuttikrishnan Nair. Instead, the true question to be posed is whether the marriage between Kuttikrishnan Nair and Madhavi Amma is established as claimed in the plaint and further, whether the plaintiff is a daughter born in that wedlock. One can probe into the latter question only upon establishing the former. The question is so posed since the plaintiff has no case under Section 16 of the Hindu Marriage Act, as per the pleadings in the plaint. Therefore, evidence as to the marriage between Kuttikrishnan Nair and Madhavi Amma is what is essentially required to be established in order to ascertain a prima facie case, or for that matter, a strong prima facie case.