{"id":106261,"date":"2026-06-02T11:18:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=106261"},"modified":"2026-06-02T11:18:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:48:42","slug":"right-to-be-forgotten-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/right-to-be-forgotten-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Right to Be Forgotten: Delhi HC Directs Google and Indian Kanoon to De-Index Records"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Right to Be Forgotten Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Delhi High Court in a recent landmark order upheld the &#8220;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/right-to-be-forgotten\/\" target=\"_blank\"><b>Right to be Forgotten<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;. It directed Google, other search engines, and Indian Kanoon to disable name-based searches for certain judgments, orders, and news articles.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The order applies mainly to cases ending in acquittal, discharge, quashing, or settlement. It also covers cases of a purely private nature. The platforms were directed to comply within two weeks.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>What is the Right to be Forgotten<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Right to be Forgotten is the right of an individual to request that certain information about them \u2014 particularly old, irrelevant, or harmful information \u2014 be removed or hidden from search engine results, so that it does not continue to haunt them indefinitely.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span><b>does not<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> mean erasing the past \u2014 it simply means ensuring that a casual internet search does not automatically surface damaging information about a person who has already been legally exonerated.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Background: The Cases That Prompted This Order<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The court decided 38 petitions \u2014 the oldest dating back to 2016 \u2014 filed by individuals including:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Persons acquitted of criminal charges.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Parties to purely private civil or matrimonial disputes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Persons whose names appear incidentally in judicial records of proceedings to which they were not even parties.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The petitioners argued that continued name-based searchability of their judicial records on platforms like Indian Kanoon causes disproportionate and continuing harm to their reputations, dignity, and life prospects \u2014 far exceeding any legitimate public interest served by such accessibility.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>The Court&#8217;s Key Findings<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>On Search Engines Having No Legal Authority<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; The High Court held made clear that search engines have no legal basis to maintain unlimited name-based access to judicial records involving acquitted persons or private matters.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>On the Disproportionality of Permanent Digital Searchability<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; The right to be forgotten reflects the evolution of privacy in response to the permanence of online information.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>On the Distorted Picture Created by Search Results<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; The court said that an acquittal should not remain hidden while details of an arrest appear prominently in search results. It observed that repeatedly highlighting a person&#8217;s arrest, accusation, or legal troubles without proper context is unfair.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>On Informational Self-Determination<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; The court noted that digital records can remain online for a very long time. It said people should have the ability to seek erasure of outdated personal information. This helps individuals avoid permanent exposure to past events that may no longer be relevant to their present lives.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Specific Directions Issued By The Court<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>To Google and Search Engines<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 De-index name-based search results linking to judgments, orders, or news articles in cases of acquittal, discharge, quashing, settlement, or private disputes.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">De-indexing simply prevents a person&#8217;s name from appearing as a search result when someone types their name into Google or searches by name on Indian Kanoon.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The judgment or court order continues to exist in full \u2014 on the court&#8217;s own website, on Indian Kanoon, and on any other platform that hosts it.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">De-indexing is NOT the same as deletion.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>To Indian Kanoon<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 Restrict name-based search functionality within the platform for records of petitioners who appeared before the Delhi HC \u2014 while keeping judgments fully accessible by case number, citation, court details, and date.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>To Courts<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 The High Court prescribed parameters for courts to decide on masking of names and personal identifiers in judicial records in cases of acquittal, discharge, or quashing \u2014 when sought by any party involved.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>To Petitioners<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 Those granted de-indexing relief may additionally seek masking from the original court that rendered the judgment.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>What the Court Did Not Decide<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The court explicitly limited its scope \u2014 it only dealt with de-indexing from name-based search results and restricting name-based search functionality within Indian Kanoon.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It did not consider complete removal or takedown of entire judgments from Indian Kanoon or any other legal database.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Supreme Court is separately dealing with the larger question of whether entire judgments can be taken down from Indian Kanoon.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>The Privacy Framework \u2014 Constitutional Underpinning<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Right to be Forgotten in India flows from the right to privacy recognised as a fundamental right under <\/span><b>Article 21<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (Right to Life and Personal Liberty) by the Supreme Court in the landmark Justice <\/span><b><i>K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2017) judgment.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India currently <\/span><b>lacks <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a comprehensive statutory framework governing the right to be forgotten \u2014 the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 touches on related concepts but does not fully codify this right.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Delhi HC&#8217;s order fills this gap through judicial interpretation \u2014 holding that the right to informational privacy and informational self-determination must be actively protected even in the absence of specific legislation.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/legal-news\/delhi-high-court-right-forgotten-google-indian-kanoon-de-indexing-10718545\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IE<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/delhi-hc-recognises-right-to-be-forgotten-directs-search-engines-to-disable-name-based-search-in-court-orders-news\/article71048040.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Right to Be Forgotten upheld by the Delhi High Court directs Google and Indian Kanoon to de-index name-based searches in acquittal, settlement, and private cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":106290,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[60,7896,22,59],"class_list":{"0":"post-106261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"tag-mains-articles","9":"tag-right-to-be-forgotten","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-mains-current-affairs-tag","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106261"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106282,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106261\/revisions\/106282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}