The Madras High Court has ruled that a mother's claim to her child should not be casually doubted, setting aside an order that denied permission for a Bangladeshi woman to donate a kidney to her minor son.
The court found fault with the approach adopted by the Tamil Nadu Authorisation Committee, which regulates living donor organ transplants, and directed the committee to immediately grant approval for the transplant.
The committee had rejected the application after concluding that the marital relationship between the child's parents had not been established, but the court held that this was an irrelevant consideration.
The court noted that the family had produced several documents, including birth records, identity documents, a marriage certificate, a DNA report and apostilled records from Bangladesh, which clearly established the mother-son relationship.
The court cautioned against placing undue reliance on oral testimony, particularly when applicants face language barriers or appear before an official body for the first time, and said that authorities should prefer documentary evidence over minor inconsistencies in verbal responses.
