The key legal principle established is that the Family Courts Act provides exclusive jurisdiction to the Family Court in suits for declaration as to the legitimacy of any person, but this exclusive jurisdiction is limited to suits or proceedings between the husband and wife, and when no declaration regarding legitimacy is sought against the father or mother, the Family Court does not have exclusive jurisdiction.

1. The first defendant in O.S.No.17 of 2011 on the file of the II Additional District Judge at Pudducherry is the revision petitioner.

2. The first respondent herein filed the above suit for declaration that he is the legitimate son of the deceased Krishnasamy Gounder and Adhilakshmi or alternatively, if for any reason this Hon'ble Court considers that he is not the legitimate son, he may be declared as illegitimate son of Krishnasamy Gounder and to pass a preliminary decree and allot half share to the plaintiff and half share to the defendants.

3. In that suit, the revision petitioner filed an application under Order XIV Rule 5 CPC to frame additional issues as stated in the petition and that application was partly allowed and the issues were re-cast by the Court below. Aggrieved by the same, this revision is filed.

4. It is submitted by Mr. T. Dhanasekaran, the learned counsel for the revision petitioner that having regard to the prayer, prayed for by the first respondent/plaintiff to declare himself as legitimate son or illegitimate son of the deceased Krishnasamy Gounder and Adhilakshmi, the civil Court has no jurisdiction to decide that issue as per section 7(1) r/w 8 of the Family Courts Act, 1984 and for that purpose and to frame other issues, the application was filed by the petitioner to frame additional issues and the first additional issue sought to be framed was whether the Court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate and decide upon the issue of legitimacy of the plaintiff, in view of section 7(1) read with Section 8 of the Family Courts Act, 1984 and while recasting the issue, the Court below has framed the first issue as “Is not the plaintiff is illegitimate son of Krishnasamy Gounder through the second wife Adhilakshmi” and the Court below failed to frame the issue as stated in the petition filed by the petitioner and the Court below ought to have framed the issue, whether the Court has got jurisdiction to adjudicate and to decide the issue of legitimacy, in view of section 7(1) read with section 8 of the Family Courts Act, 1984 and therefore, non-framing of issue, as stated in the petition is detrimental to the petitioner and by answering the issue as stated in the petition by the petitioner, the jurisdiction of the Court is questioned by the petitioner and therefore, the Court below failed to appreciate the petition filed by the petitioner and ought to have recast the first issue submitted by the petitioner in his petition for framing additional issues and the civil Court has no jurisdiction to decide the issue of legitimacy and only Family Court has got jurisdiction and therefore, the order of the Court below is liable to be dismissed and the lower Court may be directed to frame the first additional issue given by the petitioner in the petition as one of the issues and decide that issue as a preliminary one.

5. On the other hand, Mr. D. Ravichander, the learned counsel for the first respondent submitted that having regard to the main prayer in the suit, the jurisdiction of the civil Court is not ousted and a suit was filed by the first respondent for partition and incidentally to grant the relief of partition, the first respondent/plaintiff also prayed for declaration that he is the legitimate son of Krishnasamy Gounder and Adhilakshmi or in the alternative as illegitimate son Krishnasamy Gounder and in any event, he is entitled to claim half share and as a matter of fact, there is no need to pray for such declaration and the Court can give incidental finding about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the first respondent, while deciding the issue relating to the entitlement of half share in the property by the first respondent/plaintiff.

6. He further submitted that the scope of Family Courts Act is entirely different and in matrimonial matters or in matters relating to guardian, if a question arises regarding the legitimacy or illegitimacy, that has to be decided by the Family Court, as per sections 7 and 8