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Kerala High Court has mooted legislation to confer the right of property inheritance to all illegitimate children, irrespective of their religion. Justices C N Ramachandran Nair and Harun-ul-Rashid said what they suggested to Parliament was a law in conformity with section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which required the father of a child to provide maintenance to children, legitimate or illegitimate. Conferring legitimacy on innocent children, otherwise treated as illegitimate, was the prime object of section 125 of the Code. The status of legitimacy lent the child a definite right against the person, whom law and society regarded as his father. The Justices observed that a man and woman cohabiting were in substance husband and wife and their children, born outside legal wedlock, were entitled to inherit the estate of parents. Separate laws could be enacted for different religious groups or even a single law like section 125 of the Code, enabling illegitimate children to inherit estates of their father and mother. “No child is born without a father and mother. The child has no role to play in its birth. In the present world by scientific devices can identify the father of a child. The social status of children is determined by acts of parents. If they have entered into a valid marriage the child is legitimate and but if they committed a folly and as a result a child is conceived, such innocent child will be labeled as illegitimate”, the Justices observed. Parliament enacted section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure with the express purpose of protecting the legitimacy of innocent children. If Parliament recognised the right of all children, legitimate or illegitimate, to be maintained by their father under the Code, there was no reason or logic in denying the right of property inheritance to such children, the Justices said