Paradip, June 23: A 13-year-old orphan girl child living with HIV has allegedly been driven out from the hostel of a central government-run residential school in Kendrapara district, triggering a controversy.

The minor living with the disease had allegedly been denied the right to stay in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalay residential school hostel since past one year.

School authorities allowed her to continue study while denying her to accommodate in the hostel.

The girl, who is good at studies, has recently been promoted to Class IX. Unable to put up with the humiliation, her guardians now decided to seek transfer certificate and admit her at a village school.

"It's very unfortunate that authorities of a premier residential school of human resources development ministry have treated the child unfairly. The confidentiality of HIV-positive status child has been breached. This led to violation of her right to privacy. Stigmatisation of this nature has undermined her dignity," said child rights' campaigner Biraja Prasad Pati.

"The shocking case of discrimination has come to our notice. I have petitioned the district collector and sought for punitive action against the school authorities," he said.

The girl, who lost her parents to AIDS a decade ago, is being taken care of by her paternal uncle at her native village. Her younger brother studying at village school is also an HIV carrier. Because of discrimination, the girl has suffered a lot academically. She has stopped going to school after being denied stay in the hostel. She drops in to school to take the examination twice a year, Pati told The Telegraph.

Her guardian said: "We have decided to enrol her in Class IX at village school. Circumstances compelled us to do so."

"Our village is at least 45km from the school. On occasions, we used to take her to school for classroom teaching. As the strenuous journey took a toll on her health, we stopped it," he said.

"Denying education to children with HIV/AIDS is an offence. The Supreme Court had ruled that children living with, or affected by HIV/AIDS cannot be denied admission to or expelled from schools. Refusal of admission or expulsion of students on grounds of having contracted HIV/AIDS is a cognisable offence. Besides, the Right to Education Act, 2010, guarantees education to all children (irrespective of any disability or ailment) in the age group of six to 14 years. Thus rights of students with HIV/AIDS is duly protected by law," said a senior lawyer, Umesh Chandra Singh.

Navodaya Vidyalay principal Parvati Pradhan said: "The child has never been discriminated. Our school is a residential school. On health ground, we had allowed her to study here while staying at home on her guardians' request. We had done so purely on humanitarian consideration."

Kendrapara additional district magistrate Dhananjay Swain said: "We have received a petition, which alleged discrimination towards the child living with AIDS. The district administration is probing into it. If probe finds veracity in the charge, the school authorities will be taken to task."