AHMEDABAD: An Indian man who sued the authorities over his own birth because his mother conceived after undergoing sterilization in a state clinic, has lost his decades-long legal battle.

Rajesh Laljibhai Patel’s mother launched a lawsuit against the government of India’s western Gujarat state two years after he was born in 1985.

Vijuben Patel, who already had four children, had undergone a sterilization procedure at a camp organized by authorities in the state six years earlier.

She argued that government should pay for her son’s maintenance, citing medical negligence, and named him as a plaintiff in the case even though he was just two years old at the time.

India’s legal system moves notoriously slowly and it was not until 1992 that the court ruled in her favor, ordering authorities to pay her 25,000 rupees (about $400).

But the authorities appealed, and a higher court finally ordered the family to repay the money in December last year — by which time Rajesh had grown up and his mother had died.