In the landmark ruling Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), a nine-judge Constitution Bench held that the Right to Privacy is an intrinsic fundamental right flowing directly from the right to life and personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21, protecting individual autonomy, bodily integrity, and informational privacy.

Right to Privacy as Intrinsic to Life and Personal Liberty

• Inviolable Bodily Autonomy: Recognizes an individual’s sovereign right over their own physical person, medical choices, and intimate personal relationships, protected against arbitrary state and non-state interference.
• Decisional Privacy: Guarantees freedom in intimate personal choices—such as reproduction, marital relations, and family planning—without external surveillance or coercion.
• Informational Privacy: Protects an individual’s personal biological and digital data, requiring consent, purpose limitation, and proportional handling.
• The Proportionality Standard: Any state intrusion into personal privacy must pass the four-fold constitutional test: Legality, Legitimate State Aim, Proportionality, and Procedural Safeguards.

Law Relating to DNA Testing of a Child in the Womb

• Statutory Presumption of Legitimacy (Section 112 of the Indian Evidence Act / BSA): Law establishes a conclusive presumption that a child born during a valid marriage is legitimate, unless the husband proves lack of physical access to the wife at the time of conception.
• Judicial Restraint Against “Roving Inquiries”: The Supreme Court has consistently held that DNA tests cannot be directed casually or as a matter of routine. Courts permit DNA paternity testing only when a strong prima facie case of non-access is established, avoiding unwarranted “fishing or roving inquiries” into a woman’s fidelity (Goutam Kundu v. State of West Bengal; Banarsi Dass v. Teeku Dutta).
• High Medical Risks of Prenatal Testing: Extracting fetal DNA from an unborn child in the womb requires invasive procedures (such as Amniocentesis or Chorionic Villus Sampling – CVS), which carry medically documented risks of fetal injury, infection, and miscarriage.
• Protection Under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994: Strictly prohibits prenatal diagnostic procedures except for detecting specific chromosomal abnormalities or genetic disorders, prohibiting invasive testing solely for determining paternity or fetal sex.
• Fetal Rights and the Mother’s Bodily Integrity: Ordering an expectant mother to undergo invasive clinical procedures against her will violates her bodily integrity under Article 21 and subjects the unborn child to physical harm.

Balancing Competing Rights

While biological parentage holds legal significance, the physical safety of the unborn child and the bodily autonomy of the mother take precedence during pregnancy. Courts prefer deferring paternity testing until after birth, using medically safe and non-invasive methods.