Mugadha Patil (name changed) was training to be a nurse at a corporate hospital in Pune. But when the hospital came to know of her HIV status, it threw her out. Instead of taking it lying down, this girl from Kolhapur filed a petition against the hospital in the labour court.

So what chance do Mugadha and others like her have of getting justice? Not much considering that a Bill on HIV/AIDS has been lying with the Law Ministry since 2006 and is waiting to be tabled in Parliament. Groups like the Maharashtra Network of People Living with HIV, doctors, lawyers, NGOs, commercial sex workers, students and researchers with government organisations like the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI) and officers with the Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society (MSACS) have been holding sustained campaigns and want the HIV/AIDS bill to be tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament.

“The process of preparing a law on HIV/AIDS was initiated six years ago when an advisory working group chaired by the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) invited the Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit to draft the law,” said Kalpana Gaikwad, advocacy officer with Lawyers Collective in Mumbai.

The Bill was submitted to the government in 2005 and has special provisions for women, children and other vulnerable groups. NACO and the Health Ministry have thoroughly studied the Bill and other ministries have given their comments on it. The Bill was also circulated to State AIDS Control Societies and state governments for their comments. It was then placed before the Law Ministry for consideration-where it has been lying since 2006, says Pankaj Bedi, an activist with the Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR).

... contd.