Facts in Brief

The Appellant was a doctor in the Nagaland State Medical Services who accompanied his uncle — a patient of Aortic Aneurism — to Chennai, where he was required to donate blood for the surgery. Before the donation, his blood samples were sent for testing, and he was found to be HIV+. This information was communicated to his uncle, the patient.

The Appellant was engaged to be married on 12 December 1995. One month before the scheduled date of marriage, the Appellant’s uncle let his brother-in-law know that the Appellant was HIV+, on which ground the marriage was called off. He also mentioned that the information as to the Appellant’s HIV+ status had been furnished to him by the Doctor (Respondent 2) of Hospital Z (Respondent 1).

Consequently, the brother-in-law called off the marriage the next day. The Appellant tried to contact the Respondents about the unauthorised disclosure by the Hospital as to his health status, but received no satisfactory reply from the Management. Thereupon, he went before the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, seeking compensation and interim relief for the breach of the duty to maintain confidentiality, and the consequent discrimination, loss of earnings and social ostracism. The Appellant alleged that as a result of the calling off of his marriage, the whole community had come to know about his HIV+ status, as a result of which he was facing social ostracism.

Arguments

The Appellant contended that:

• The principle of medical ethics of the “Duty to take care” also included the “Duty to maintain confidentiality,” and the Respondents, having breached the same by informing the Appellant’s uncle of their own accord, had breached that duty.
• The duty to maintain secrecy vested in medical professionals carried a correlative right vested in the patient — that whatever came to the knowledge of the Doctor would not be divulged.
• The duty to maintain confidentiality as to the health of the patient was also enforceable, being provided for in the Code of Medical Ethics, formulated to regulate the conduct of medical practitioners by the Indian Medical Council.
• The disclosure of the fact that the Appellant was HIV+ was a violation of his Right to Privacy.

Judgment

The Appeal was dismissed on the ground that the fact that the Appellant was found HIV+ and the subsequent disclosure was not violative of the Right to Privacy or the Rule of Confidentiality, as the prospective bride of the Appellant was saved in time by the disclosure; otherwise, she would also have been infected by the deadly disease, had the marriage not been called off.

In coming to this conclusion, the Court held:

(a) The argument of a Duty to maintain Confidentiality was not acceptable, as the proposed marriage carried with it a health risk to an identifiable person who could be protected from being infected by the said disease, which is communicable and incurable.

(b) The Hippocratic Oath, from which the Duty to maintain Secrecy terminates, was not enforceable in a court of law.

(c) In certain circumstances — such as the investigation or prosecution of a serious crime, or where there was an immediate or future risk of health hazard to others — the Duty to maintain Secrecy was overridden by Public Interest.

(d) The right to privacy was subject to compelling public interest (as held in Govind v. State of Madhya Pradesh, AIR 1975 SC 1295).

(e) The fact that the Doctor is morally and ethically bound to maintain secrecy as to the information imparted by the patient is subject to the rights of another person to be informed, which may clash with those of the patient’s right to be informed. Thus, the more important one takes precedence.

(f) The lady to whom the Appellant was getting married had the Fundamental Right of “Right to Life” under Article 21 of the Constitution, which included the “Right to Healthy Life.” Therefore, the Right to Life of another individual took precedence over the Right to Privacy and Confidentiality of the patient.

(g) The presence of venereal disorders was a valid ground for divorce. Thus, if the disease the Appellant was suffering from constituted a valid ground for divorce, then — being concealed from her that the man she was marrying was suffering from a virulent venereal disease — the marriage needed to be injuncted from being entered into, to prevent the man from spoiling the health and consequently the life of an innocent human being.

(h) The Right to Marry also vested in the very same person the Duty to duly inform the future partner about a virulent ailment. The “Right to Marry” could not be enforced in a Court of law unless the person was cured of the disease, and till then it remained a “Suspended Right.”

(i) The spread of a virulent disease dangerous to life was a penal offence under Sections 269 and 270 of the Indian Penal Code. Had the Respondents kept silent about the ailment of the Appellant, then they would have actually aided the penal offence, thereby becoming particeps criminis.

For the Common Man

An important judgment on the rights of AIDS patients, the judgment shows the clash of interests between the rights of such patients and the rights of the world at large to be informed of the same, in order to take adequate precautions from getting affected by it. No doubt the judgment exposes AIDS patients to the world at large and leaves out the scope of a dignified life away from social ostracism, but it seems to be justified on the ground that such a right cannot be allowed to get another person affected by the same. The Court therefore justified the act of the Hospital in informing the prospective bride of the fact of the Appellant being HIV+.