Woman moves HC praying for DNA test of minister

The woman, who claimed that she was a wife of Jharkhand Agriculture Minister Satyanand Jha Batul and has a child from the marriage.

Ranchi: The woman, who claimed that she was a wife of Jharkhand Agriculture Minister Satyanand Jha Batul and has a child from the marriage, today moved the High Court seeking a DNA test to establish the truth.

In her criminal writ petition, Soni Devi Choudhary, a para-teacher, claimed that she had married Jha in a temple in 1996, and her four-year-old child Vishal was from the second marriage.

She also appended an earlier affidavit allegedly made by her first husband Bhupen that he was medically unfit for procreation and attached a birth certificate of her son, Vishal.

Soni Devi had last year retracted from her allegations after the minister denied but once again raised the issue on August 18, leading to her first husband and Jha`s son filing separate complaint cases in Jharkhand`s Jamtara courts on August 24 against her.
The two courts directed the police to institute FIRs and conduct an inquiry into the allegations.

The first case was lodged in the Court of Judicial Magistrate S M Tripathy, Jamtara, by Bhupen saying that he is the husband of 41-year-old Soni Devi and father of her son accusing her of tarnishing his image.
While Bhupen mentioned the name of the child as Vikram, Soni Devi`s petition in the high court named him as Vishal.

The second complaint was filed by the minister`s son Braj Kishore Jha with the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Jamtara, accusing Soni Devi and her brother Santosh Choudhary of hatching a conspiracy to defame his father after being twice refused to give money to Santosh Choudhary.
PTI

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