Cleared by Court but Haunted Online: How India's 'Right to Be Forgotten' Is Evolving

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court recently directed that the identity of a petitioner be masked after criminal proceedings against him were quashed. The ruling has reignited focus on the 'right to be forgotten' — a legal concept that allows individuals to request removal of personal information from online records when it no longer serves a public purpose and continues to harm their privacy or reputation.

While India does not yet have a specific law governing this right, courts have increasingly recognised it as part of the fundamental right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution, drawing from the Supreme Court's landmark judgment in K.S. Puttaswamy (2017). The latest ruling by the Bombay High Court dealt with a 37-year-old environment and climate change consultant whose criminal proceedings were quashed after the parties settled the dispute. The court held that there was no continuing public interest in identifying him online and ordered that his identity be anonymised.

The right to be forgotten is not automatic. Courts decide such requests on a case-by-case basis, balancing the individual's right to privacy against the public's right to access information. Persons who have been acquitted, discharged, or benefited from quashing of proceedings, as well as those involved in matrimonial and private civil disputes, may approach High Courts under Article 226 of the Constitution seeking relief.

Depending on the facts, courts have granted three kinds of relief: masking or redaction (removing the person's name from the judgment while leaving the judgment online), de-indexing or de-linking (directing search engines not to display the judgment in name-based searches), and, in some cases, complete removal of the judgment from the court's website while preserving official records internally.

The Delhi High Court has observed that 'India presently lacks a comprehensive statutory framework explicitly governing the right to be forgotten,' while the Bombay High Court, in a 2022 ruling, held that 'each case will have to be assessed independently on its merits.' Factors considered include the nature of the information, whether it concerns intimate aspects of private life or professional conduct, and the balance between privacy and public interest.

As more individuals seek to reclaim their digital privacy after legal vindication, the Indian judiciary continues to shape the contours of this emerging right, setting precedents that may influence future legislation.