New Delhi: Can someone acquitted in a criminal case arising out of a matrimonial dispute demand deletion of their name from online name-based search results?
In a significant judgment on 29 May, the Delhi High Court answered in the affirmative by formally recognising the right to be forgotten as a part of the fundamental right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The ruling comes at a time when court records, once confined to physical archives, can be accessed online within seconds through search engines and legal databases. Although this has improved public access to the justice system, it has also created a new challenge. Information connected to a person’s past can remain permanently accessible, often long after the dispute itself has lost relevance.
Justice Sachin Datta, while acting on a batch of petitions seeking the removal, de-linking or de-indexing of online content, ruled in a 144-page judgment that courts can intervene when the continued availability of personal information causes disproportionate prejudice to an individual’s privacy, dignity and reputation.
Explaining the constitutional basis of the right, the court observed that privacy protections must evolve alongside technology and the realities of the digital age.
“The right to be forgotten thus reflects the evolution of privacy in response to the permanence of online information. In a society where digital records are virtually indelible, the ability to seek erasure ensures that informational self-determination remains effective. It protects individuals from perpetual exposure to past events that may no longer bear relevance, while preserving their dignity and autonomy in the society,” the court ruled.
The ruling comes on a batch of 38 petitions before the High Court arising from different circumstances but touching upon a common grievance. Several persons complained that a simple internet search of their names continued to bring up links to court cases that had ended years earlier.
In many instances, the proceedings had concluded in their favour, yet the online association remained. For instance, a woman whose husband’s name had appeared in a criminal case told the court that he had no role in it. The presence of these publicly-available records creates a false impression of criminal involvement, thereby infringing on his right to life and personal liberty.
Among the petitioners were individuals who had been acquitted in criminal matters, persons involved in matrimonial litigation and others whose names appeared in judicial proceedings without being central to the dispute itself. They argued that the continued visibility of such information affected their employment prospects, professional relationships and social standing.
The court was also asked to consider the role played by legal databases and search engines in amplifying this problem.
Besides seeking the removal of news reports, some petitioners sought directions against platforms such as Indian Kanoon, which host and index court judgments. Their argument was not that judicial decisions should disappear from the public domain, but that personal identifiers contained in those decisions should not be easily discoverable through name-based searches.
The court has directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) to ensure compliance with these directions and convey the same to Google, Indian Kanoon and other such search engine operators. These platforms must also file an affidavit before the court detailing what they’ve done to comply with the present ruling.
In a nutshell, the ruling states that courts must carefully balance two competing values. On one side lies an individual’s right to privacy and informational autonomy. On the other is the principle of open justice, which requires judicial proceedings and decisions to remain accessible to the public.
Justice Datta clarified that the objective is not to erase judgments or rewrite history. Judicial decisions constitute part of the public record and continue to serve an important role in legal research, precedent and public accountability, the court said. Any remedy granted by the court must therefore preserve the integrity of those records.
The court may also direct the masking of names and other personal identifiers in appropriate cases, the bench said.
The court also made it clear that original, unredacted versions of court records will continue to exist. These records will remain available to courts, litigating parties and authorised authorities whenever required for legitimate legal purposes.
One of the most consequential aspects of the ruling concerns search engines and legal databases.
The court held that once a masking order is passed, the concerned judgment should be de-indexed from searches based on the individual’s name. As a result, while the decision may still exist within legal repositories, it would no longer be readily traceable through a simple online search of the person’s identity.
What is de-indexing?
In the present case, the court used de-indexing and de-linking as interchangeable terms, and went on to define them as the “removal of a specific URL or record from the name-based search results generated by a search engine or legal database platform in response to a search query entered in the name of an individual”.
Making it clear that de-indexing does not erase the judicial record, the court said the process of de-indexing means the judgment or order continues to exist on the court’s website and on whichever platform hosts it. It remains accessible to anyone who knows the case number, the citation, the court, or any other purposeful identifier.
What changes is only that the concerned name, whether an individual or an entity, ceases to function as an unlimited retrieval key that instantly and effortlessly surfaces the record for any casual internet user who happens to search that name, the court said.
Recognising that online disclosures can cause continuing harm, the court stressed the need for timely adjudication of such requests. Delays, it noted, can prolong the very injury that applicants seek to remedy.
At the same time, judicial authorities would retain the power to revisit, modify or withdraw masking orders if future circumstances warrant a different course.
While the judgment stopped short of creating an unrestricted right to erase personal history from the internet, it recognised that individuals should not necessarily remain tied forever to disputes that have ended, allegations that were disproved, or episodes that no longer hold public significance.
(Edited by Niyati Kothiyal)
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