My school shut, faced ostracisation’: Gujarat HC seeks State response on man’s compensation plea for revealing HIV status

Advocate Rohin Bhatt, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that the disclosures allegedly made while the petitioner was in police custody amounted to a serious breach of his right to privacy and violated statutory protections available under the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Prevention and Control) Act, 2017. The petition seeks exemplary compensation from the State, contending that disclosure of the petitioner’s HIV status and sexuality triggered a chain of events that destroyed his personal and professional life.

According to the plea, the petitioner and his Syrian partner were arrested during a Special Operations Group operation in Devbhoomi Dwarka on November 14, 2025. The Syrian national was subsequently booked under provisions of the Foreigners Act for allegedly overstaying in India and the petitioner was booked for harbouring the foreign national. While his partner was granted conditional bail by the High Court earlier this year after the State did not dispute his deteriorating health condition, the petition challenging the criminal case against the two men and seeking protection from deportation remains pending.

The petitioner has alleged that after their arrest, the two men were interrogated by Gujarat Police officers as well as officials claiming to represent intelligence agencies before an FIR came to be registered under Sections 14A and 14C of the Foreigners Act.

Fallout of police action

The petition states that in November 2025 the two men were allegedly paraded before the media while in police custody and that their identities, photographs and personal details were subsequently published by newspapers and online platforms. The coverage, the plea states, included references to the petitioner’s HIV status and sexual orientation. The fallout, according to the petitioner, extended well beyond the criminal proceedings as the school he had established in June 2022, registered under the Education Department, has been closed.

The petition alleges that education authorities compelled the school to conduct HIV testing of all enrolled students on January 8, 2026, after obtaining parental consent and none of the children tested positive.

The petitioner states that the stigma surrounding the disclosures persisted, eventually forcing him to shut down the school and ask parents to collect school-leaving certificates and examination results in May this year. He attributes the decision to the “severe stress, opprobrium and media trial” that followed publication of his HIV status, which he says caused immense mental trauma, public humiliation, social ostracisation and complete loss of livelihood. The plea claims that he was shunned by family members and neighbours, denied access to shared household items, subjected to verbal abuse and refused routine services in his town, including by his barber and doctor, leaving him effectively isolated.

Arguing that the disclosures violated informational privacy protected under Article 21 of the Constitution, the petitioner has relied on Supreme Court precedents recognising heightened privacy protections for sensitive medical information and contended that the unauthorised disclosure caused irreparable damage to his dignity and reputation.

The High Court will next hear the matter in the first week of August.