Solar panel asks Saritha to reveal paternity of child

KOCHI: The Sivarajan Commission probing the solar scam caused a flutter on Tuesday, asking Saritha S Nair, who appeared as a witness, to reveal the paternity of her child. In the presence of a packed crowd at its office, the commission demanded to know who fathered her second child, who was born after she got separated from her husband.

Nair refused to heed to the commission’s demand, stubbornly stating that there was no public interest involved in the question. The proceedings ended abruptly with Nair breaking down in the witness’s box. She sought to go out of the hall after starting to bleed from the nose. Her lawyer told the commission that she was suffering from an illness. The commission later decided to examine her on Wednesday.

Nair’s lawyer pointed out that his client had every right to her privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution as a woman, and there were several judgments by the apex court upholding the right. However, the commission refused to accept the arguments and asked the lawyer to come up with the relevant details and documents when it holds the sitting on Wednesday.

Nair’s persistent refusal to budge to its probing questions and the prayer of her lawyer that she may not be compelled to answer that question led to the commission going on to loudly wonder what question of privacy could be involved in an issue of paternity.

“If Nair insists on not to disclose the details, the Commission may have to speak about several unclean things involved in the issue. The commission was constituted to probe into many tainted issues, including corruption. There is no Nair has given to the police,” it said.

When her lawyer insisted that she may not be compelled to disclose the paternity of the child born to her, the panel noted that “in such circumstances, for the time being, she may not be compelled.” However, the Commission noted that when her mother was examined as a witness and the question of paternity was posed to her, she had maintained that the question should be raised to Nair.

On another query from the Commission, Nair stated that she had no relations with Biju Radhakrishnan, prime accused in the scam, except that she was the director of the company in which Biju was the Managing Director.