Delhi High Court Rules Privacy Includes Right to Be Forgotten

The Delhi High Court ruled that the right to privacy under Article 21 includes a "right to be forgotten" for certain individuals [1, 2].

This ruling establishes a legal precedent in India for removing digital footprints of past legal battles, potentially shielding acquitted persons from lifelong reputational damage caused by search engine results.

Justice Sachin Datta issued the order requiring search engines, such as Google, and legal-information platforms, such as Indian Kanoon, to take specific actions [1, 2]. The court ordered these entities to delist the names of acquitted individuals from judgments and to disable search results based on those names [1, 2].

The court's objective is to protect the privacy and reputation of individuals whose judgments are no longer relevant or who have been cleared of charges [1, 2]. By removing these records from public search indices, the court aims to prevent the perpetual online stigma that often follows a person long after a legal matter has concluded [1, 2].

Despite the ruling, some analysts said the order is impractical. They argued that the nature of the internet makes complete erasure difficult, noting that the internet never forgets ^[1]. These critics said that while search results may be hidden, the underlying data often remains accessible through other means.

The order specifically targets the intersection of judicial transparency and individual privacy [1, 2]. While court records remain part of the official legal archive, the ruling restricts how that information is surfaced to the general public via commercial search tools [1, 2].