In a move that will strengthen the campaign against illegal clinics and quacks, the state’s consumer disputes redressal commission has ordered a doctor to pay compensation to a man who was diagnosed HIV-positive and then declared cured.

Without any pathological investigations, the accused, N R Yadav, had diagnosed S K Singh as HIV-positive when the latter came to him for treatment of hepatitis. Yadav, a private practitioner, promised Singh that he could be fully cured by submitting himself to a three-month special treatment programme.

Three months and Rs 10,000 later the doctor pronounced that the treatment had worked.

It was only when Singh sought a second opinion that the truth of the cure was revealed.

Singh’s plea to the consumer commission was that he be compensated for loss of mental peace and social prestige, besides the money spent as doctor’s fees and on medicines.

Last week, a three-judge bench, consisting of the commission’s president Justice Bhawan Singh ordered the erring doctor to pay Rs 25,000 in compensation and also that his registration be re-examined.

This is not the first such case. Last July, the consumer forum had ordered a compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh for Kanpur’s Ajay Kumar Sharma, who had been erroneously diagnosed HIV-positive and had to consequently quit his job and change his home.

The case still lies in appeal with the doctor and the pathologist maintaining that they cannot be made to pay for the defects of the HIV testing system in use.

Besides contending with wrong diagnostic results, HIV-positive people are often driven by a lack of knowledge, poor access to resources and a sense of shame to dubious clinics that advertise miracle cures in newspapers, posters, fliers and graffiti by the side of railways tracks.

Arif Jafar, Director of the Lucknow branch of the Naz India Foundation, an NGO that works on HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health says tackling such clinics and doctors is difficult.

“There is no government control on such advertisements and complaints are rare. In the rare case of a complaint the ‘doctor’ will  simply pack up and start shop elsewhere”.

The Indian Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS has, since May this year, launched a national campaign against illegal clinics, quacks, tantriks and miracle healers who claim to cure HIV/AIDS with everything from herbal remedies and homeopathic treatments to magical chants and exorcism.