Ranchi, Nov. 8: His genes will decide whether he is Ravish Kumar of Ranchi's Sukhdeonagar or Sunil Oraon of Ganeshpur village in Chanho block.
In a first-ever move of its kind in the state, Jharkhand High Court today ordered DNA profiling ' commonly known as DNA test ' of an 11-year-old boy to settle the dispute between two women over his parentage and has asked for the report on November 22.
It isn't clear if the test will take place at the state forensic lab in Hotwar. Right now, the court has ordered the boy be kept in police protection under the local ward councillor's guardianship.
DNA test recently hit the headlines in two cases. Jamtara para-teacher Soni Devi claimed BJP minister Satyanand Jha Batul had fathered her son Vishal and petitioned Jharkhand High Court to order a DNA test, which is pending.
One Rohit Shekhar proved veteran Congressman N.D. Tiwary was his father.
Legitimacy isn't the crux of the case where the boy is the pivot. Two women, one urban and another rural, are staking claim on the boy.
Homemaker Meera Devi of Sukhdeonagar filed a criminal writ petition claiming custody of the boy she calls Ravish. She claims the boy is her son who went missing in 2009 and that she registered an FIR with the local police. Earlier this year, some acquaintances in Chanho on the capital's outskirts apparently told her that the boy was in Ganeshpur.
According to Meera, when she went to Ganeshpur, she found the boy staying with tribal woman Bolo Orain who called him her son Sunil Oraon. Meera said she faced fierce resistance from Bolo and the villagers when she said she would take the boy with her.
Then, Meera filed a petition before the high court, which issued a notice to Bolo and ordered Chanho police to produce the child in court. Bolo, along with some villagers, brought the boy to court today and rubbished Meera's claim. She also brought along her other children.
Division bench of Justice D.N. Patel and Prashant Kumar said the only way to resolve the dispute was a DNA test.
When The Telegraph caught up with the boy, the story became more mysterious.
The boy in Sadri dialect said he had gone to Gorakhpur where he was lost in the station. "I was brought to Ranchi by a sadhu and taken to my village Ganeshpur. Bolo Orain is my mother," he said.
