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A 25-year-old housewife has moved the Madras High Court seeking Rs one crore as compensation and a public apology from the Tamil Nadu AIDS Control Society for publishing her photograph along with that of her child on posters without her permission during the state-wide Aids awareness campaign two years ago.
In her petition on Monday, she said her family had come close to being ostracised by relatives and neighbours after publication of the posters and sought the compensation and apology from the organisation, a statutory body which oversees and streamlines AIDS control programmes in the state. The posters, which came up all over the state, showed the woman and her infant daughter thanking the society for their support.
The woman said the posters gave an impression that the two were suffering from AIDS when the fact was otherwise. She claimed that initially, even her husband had suspected her character and the child faced discrimination in society. At one point, she had even contemplated suicide, unable to bear the stigma. She prayed for an interim injunction to restrain the organisation from putting up further posters and remove those already pasted. Justice K Suguna, before whom the petition came up for hearing, directed issue of notice to the organisation and posted it for hearing on August five.