Right to be Forgotten Upheld: Analysing the Bombay High Court [Nagpur Bench] Decision on Digital Privacy

The Right to be Forgotten is recognised in Indian Jurisprudence as a part of the Fundamental Right to Privacy, which in turn, becomes a part of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. At the global level, the right finds its basis in the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The court recognised an individual right to have search engine links to outdated or irrelevant personal information delisted.

This trajectory began in the case of R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, where the Hon’ble Supreme Court recognised a qualified ‘right to be let alone.’ It gained a firm constitutional footing in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy [Retd.] v. Union of India, where a nine-judge bench held privacy to be intrinsic to Article 21 and protective of individual autonomy over personal information.

The High Courts have, however, been sharply divided on the extent to which the constitutional right to privacy encompasses a right to the erasure or de-indexing of judicial records and search-engine results. In the Gujarat High Court’s judgment in Dharamraj Bhanushankar Dave v. State of Gujarat, it was noted that the courts of record are not expected to withhold or remove their own judgments in the absence of statutory authority. On the other hand, the Delhi High Court became the most consistent advocate of the Right to be Forgotten, with the recent case of Laksh Vir Singh Yadav v. Union of India providing a landmark precedent.

The present judgment must be read in the context of a body of High Court doctrine which is doctrinally unsettled but is beginning to take its shape.

FACTS

On 5 October 2017, a First Information Report [FIR No.144/2017] was lodged against the Petitioner, an Environment and Climate Change Consultant at Police Station, Bajaj Nagar, Nagpur. This matter and all subsequent proceedings were subsequently quashed by a Division Bench following an amicable settlement between the Parties.

Despite his complete legal exoneration over seven years before this petition, the unredacted digital records of the District Court proceedings continued to be prominently accessible online and indexed by external search engines.

The Petitioner argued that such ‘algorithmic permanence’ cropped up time and again in his daily professional and educational background checks, impacting his career and family’s social standing. In fact, he alleged that this went so far as to stigmatise his minor daughter also.

He, therefore, moved this writ petition by asking the Registrar General to remove his name and personal details from the publicly available digital copies of the judgment and the connected orders from the search engines and anonymise and mask his name and details on the search engines, claiming these to be inherent under the Fundamental Right to Privacy, under Article 21.

ISSUES

The following issues were raised in this case:

Does the Fundamental Right to Privacy enshrined in the Constitution under Article 21 also extend to the ‘Right to be Forgotten’ against the writ of the Court’s own digital memory?
Whether a Party to criminal proceedings whose proceedings have been dismissed after an amicable resolution can have his identity concealed from a publicly accessible electronic copy of the judgment and order issued by the High Court which is a court of record?
Whether the public’s fundamental right to information prevails over an individual’s right to privacy once criminal proceedings have been entirely quashed?

CONTENTIONS

I. PETITIONER

The Counsel for the Petitioner argued on the basis of the Fundamental Right to Privacy, specifically invoking the “Right to be Forgotten” to protect the reputation of a person. It was argued that the records should not be made available on the Internet, citing the prejudice that would be suffered by the Petitioner to his social life and career progression.

It was further contended that the right to protect one’s reputation should not be limited to protecting against falsehoods, but should also apply to the disclosure of embarrassing truths that have no continuing public interest.

II. RESPONDENT

The Respondent [State of Maharashtra], represented by the Additional Public Prosecutor opposed the contention that the Petitioner’s reputation needs to exist not only against falsehood but also certain truths. However, insofar as the Right to Privacy is concerned, the Additional Public Prosecutor conceded that the it is an undisputed legal position, leaving it to the Court to pass an appropriate order regarding the masking of the digital records.

JUDGMENT

The Court directed the Registry to mask the petitioner’s name as “ABC” in all future cause titles, pleadings, citations, and search results related to the specified criminal proceedings.

Herein, the Hon’ble High Court of Bombay [Nagpur Bench] allowed the present petition. The Court applied constitutional principles of proportionality and adjudged the matter based on the necessity of balancing public access to information with individual autonomy. The Court held that the Petitioner is entitled to have his name masked, as the dispute was amicably resolved and keeping the information alive on the internet served no ongoing public interest.

It had observed that the concept of privacy is a settled fundamental right which is an inherent part of Article 21 and that the right to be forgotten is part of the right to privacy. The Court concluded that, in today’s digital era, the dissemination of information on individuals who have been acquitted or whose cases have been dismissed goes on far after the conclusion of their legal proceedings, thus creating a sense of injustice and lack of proportionality. Access to information is a core element of democracy, but it can’t be separated from the need to balance that public interest with an individual’s Right to Privacy, especially when proceedings are quashed, and there is no longer a public interest in keeping the information alive in the digital world.

The Court clarified that when an individual is acquitted or when criminal proceedings are quashed, holding their digital footprint against them violates basic notions of proportionality and fairness. It noted that no public interest can be served by keeping the information alive on the internet in the age of search engines.

ANALYSIS

The present decision prioritizes rehabilitative privacy over the uncontrolled global reach of digital search engines. It rigorously applies the constitutional protections under Article 21 to the modern problem of “algorithmic permanence”. The judgment focuses on how public interest naturally diminishes once a criminal matter is lawfully quashed. The court upheld the Petitioner’s Right to be Forgotten, which was evidenced by the tangible prejudice to his career progression and the social stigma faced by his family.

It is an important, though incremental, development of India’s judicially crafted jurisprudence of the Right to be Forgotten. Its main merit was that of carefully balancing the remedy sought. The Court did not seek to destroy or expunge judicial records, nor did it question the validity of the High Court’s role as a court of record. It, on the other hand, limited relief to the narrower issue of the blocking of identifiers appearing on the Court’s website and its search results, rather than the more fundamental argument advanced by Dharamraj Bhanushankar Dave that “courts of record cannot selectively block their own judgments”.

TRACING THE EVOLUTION OF THE RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN IN INDIA

S. No.	Case Title	Citation	Brief Summary
1	R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu	[1994] 6 SCC 632	Supreme Court recognised the ‘right to be let alone’ as part of the right to privacy, subject to exceptions for public records and legitimate public interest — treated as the conceptual precursor to RTBF in India.
2	Dharamraj Bhanushankar Dave v. State of Gujarat	2017 SCC OnLine Guj 2493	Gujarat High Court declined to restrain online publication of a non-reportable acquittal judgment, holding that courts of record cannot selectively erase judicial records absent statutory backing.
3	Sri Vasunathan v. Registrar General, High Court of Karnataka	2017 SCC OnLine Kar 424	Karnataka High Court permitted masking of a woman’s name from a quashing order in a matrimonial dispute, becoming the first Indian court to give effect to an RTBF-type claim.
4	Justice K.S. Puttaswamy [Retd.] v. Union of India [Puttaswamy II]	[2017] 10 SCC 1	Supreme Court’s nine-judge bench declared privacy a fundamental right under Article 21 and recognised individual autonomy over one’s personal information, providing the constitutional foundation for RTBF claims.
5	Zulfiqar Ahman Khan v. Quintillion Business Media Pvt. Ltd.	2019 SCC OnLine Del 8494	Delhi High Court granted interim relief directing removal of certain online articles, invoking RTBF/right to privacy in the context of #MeToo allegations later withdrawn.
6	Subhranshu Rout @ Gugul v. State of Odisha	2020 SCC OnLine Ori 878	Orissa High Court, while denying bail, extensively discussed RTBF in the context of intimate images circulated online, urging a legislative framework balancing privacy and free speech.
7	Jorawer Singh Mundy v. Union of India	2021 SCC OnLine Del 2306	Delhi High Court directed removal/de-indexing of an acquittal judgment from online platforms, holding that the prejudice to the petitioner’s career and social standing outweighed continued public availability.
8	X v. Registrar General, High Court of Kerala [Rape victim identity case]	2021 [Kerala HC]; W.P.[C] No. 9478/2016	Kerala High Court directed Indian Kanoon to remove a rape survivor’s name from a published judgment, prioritising victim dignity and statutory anonymity protections over open publication.
9	Karthick Theodre v. Registrar General, Madras High Court	2021 SCC OnLine Mad 2755	Single Judge declined redaction of an acquitted accused’s identity, holding it premature to craft such a right judicially absent a data-protection statute prescribing objective criteria. On appeal, the Division Bench reversed course and directed redaction of the appellant’s personal details from the earlier acquittal judgment, citing prejudice to his foreign visa/employment prospects.
10	ABC v. State & Anr.	2024 SCC OnLine Del 8113	The Delhi High Court reiterated that the right to privacy under Article 21 encompasses RTBF, reinforcing the doctrinal basis relied upon by the Bombay High Court in the present case.
11	Rakesh Jagdish Kalra v. India Today Group & Ors.]	2024 SCC OnLine Del 5113	The Delhi High Court established a comprehensive framework for the “right to be forgotten” under Article 21. Ruling on over 35 petitions, Justice Sachin Datta held that informational privacy rights operate horizontally against non-State actors, including search engines. The Court authorized de-indexing and masking personal identifiers for exonerated individuals and parties to sensitive disputes where digital permanence serves no public purpose. Balancing privacy with open justice, the Court maintained exceptions denying relief for serious convictions, public figures, and ongoing matters of public interest.
12	Laksh Vir Singh Yadav v. Union of India and Ors.	2026 SCC OnLine Del 4491	The Delhi High Court formally recognized the “right to be forgotten” as an essential facet of informational privacy under Article 21. The Court ruled that individuals who have been acquitted, discharged, or had their cases quashed have the right to seek the de-indexing and masking of their names from search engines and legal databases. Balancing personal dignity with open justice, the Court clarified that while official judicial records remain intact for public accountability, an individual’s name should not function as a perpetual digital retrieval key that causes ongoing social stigma. This judgment establishes a comprehensive constitutional framework for de-indexing remedies in India, bridging the gap left by the absence of dedicated statutory legislation.

Drawing on the precedents before it, the Bombay High Court’s decision in ABC v. State of Maharashtra & Ors. further strengthens the evolving jurisprudence on the Right to be Forgotten as an aspect of the Fundamental Right to Privacy [under Article 21] in India.

This case demonstrates the willingness of constitutional courts to adapt traditional privacy principles to the realities of permanent digital records and search engine indexing. The judgment also reinforces the distinction between erasing judicial records and restricting public digital access to those records. By directing anonymisation rather than deletion, the Court preserved the principle of open justice while mitigating the disproportionate impact of continued online identification. This distinction is likely to influence future litigation concerning digital privacy and judicial transparency.