MADURAI: Observing that documents cannot be taken as evidence by court without cross examination, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court dismissed a plea filed by a woman seeking compensation from the State government after she was 'wrongly' tested positive for HIV by the government headquarters hospital in Virudhunagar.
Justice CV Karthikeyan, who passed the order, opined that though the petitioner claims to have undergone tests in two private labs in Madurai subsequently, which tested her 'non-reactive' for HIV, it is not known whether the labs had conducted the tests in conformity with the guidelines issued by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).
The petitioner should have undergone further blood test in government authorised laboratory as suggested by the Virudhunagar hospital, which could have settled her doubts, he pointed out.
The lab reports can be treated as evidence only when the petitioner, under oath, produces them before a Court of Law for scrutiny and subjects herself and the persons who signed the reports to cross examination, Justice Karthikeyan stated. Till then, all these reports remain only as pieces of papers, he further held and dismissed the petition with liberty to the petitioner to approach a civil court for relief.