THE RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN: PRIVACY, OPEN JUSTICE AND THE LIMITS OF DIGITAL MEMORY

The internet has transformed the relationship between personal information, public records and individual reputation. Court judgments, news reports and legal databases can now be retrieved within seconds through a simple name-based search. This accessibility strengthens transparency and public accountability, but it can also create a permanent digital association between an individual and an allegation, dispute or past event, even after acquittal, discharge, settlement or the conclusion of legal proceedings. Information that was once difficult to retrieve can become permanently searchable, affecting employment opportunities, social relationships, professional standing and personal dignity.

The constitutional challenge is to reconcile the right to informational privacy with the principle of open justice. Public access to judicial records enables citizens to scrutinise courts, understand legal reasoning and hold public institutions accountable. At the same time, unrestricted name-based discoverability can cause continuing harm when the public interest in identifying an individual has diminished or when the record concerns a private dispute.

On 29 May 2026, the Delhi High Court delivered an important judgment in Laksh Vir Singh Yadav v. Union of India and Connected Matters, recognising the right to be forgotten as a facet of informational privacy protected under Article 21 of the Constitution. Justice Sachin Datta established a framework for de-indexing certain judicial records from name-based search results and for masking personal identifiers in specified circumstances. The ruling addressed petitions involving individuals who had been acquitted, discharged or had proceedings quashed, parties to matrimonial and private disputes, and persons whose identities appeared in sensitive judicial records.

The judgment distinguishes de-indexing from erasure. De-indexing restricts the ability to retrieve specified material through a person’s name while preserving the underlying judicial record and its availability through other appropriate identifiers, such as case number, citation, court or date. The framework therefore attempts to protect informational privacy without automatically removing judicial records from public access

The ruling raises a fundamental question for constitutional democracy: when does public access to information become disproportionate exposure of personal identity? Its significance lies in the attempt to balance privacy, dignity, freedom of expression, access to justice and the public’s right to scrutinise judicial proceedings in an increasingly searchable digital environment.

LAKSH VIR SINGH YADAV JUDGMENT: RECOGNISING THE RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN

The Delhi High Court’s judgment of 29 May 2026 arose from a batch of petitions seeking relief against the continued online availability and name-based searchability of judicial records and related reports. The petitions involved different circumstances, including acquittals, discharge, quashing of proceedings, matrimonial disputes, private civil disputes and the appearance of personal identities in sensitive legal records. The Court considered whether the continuing association of an individual’s name with such material could infringe informational privacy even when the underlying records had originally been published lawfully.

The Court recognised that the consequences of digital publication are different from those of conventional archival records. A judgment stored in a physical archive may remain accessible to a person who knows where to look, but a search engine can make the same information immediately discoverable to employers, colleagues, acquaintances and strangers. Digital searchability changes the practical consequences of public availability by reducing the effort required to retrieve information and by enabling old material to follow an individual across different contexts.

The Court’s framework addresses this problem through de-indexing and, in appropriate cases, masking. De-indexing restricts specified material from appearing in name-based search results. Masking involves concealing or replacing identifying details in the relevant judicial record. These remedies are distinct: de-indexing changes how information is retrieved, while masking changes the identifying information displayed in the record itself. The appropriate relief depends on the circumstances and the directions issued by the court.

The Court’s reasoning was particularly concerned with cases in which the continued association of a person’s name with a judicial record no longer served a sufficient public interest. In cases involving acquittal, discharge or quashing, the Court considered the relationship between the judicial outcome, the presumption of innocence and the continuing reputational consequences of online identification. It also considered the privacy interests involved in matrimonial and other purely private civil disputes, where intimate details may remain searchable long after proceedings have concluded.

The judgment did not establish that every individual can demand the removal of any inconvenient or embarrassing information. Its framework requires attention to the nature of the proceedings, the judicial outcome, the privacy interests involved and the existence of a legitimate continuing public interest. Public figures, convicted persons and matters involving continuing public interest may require a different analysis from private individuals whose proceedings have ended in acquittal or settlement.

The institutional context is also important. The decision was delivered by a single judge of the Delhi High Court in a batch of writ petitions. It should not be described as a nationwide Supreme Court ruling that automatically erases all judicial records involving acquitted persons. Its significance lies in the framework developed by the High Court and the specific directions issued to the parties and platforms concerned.

ARTICLE 21 AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO INFORMATIONAL PRIVACY

The constitutional foundation of the right to be forgotten is the protection of privacy under Article 21, which guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. Judicial interpretation has expanded the understanding of Article 21 beyond physical liberty to encompass dignity, autonomy and aspects of personal privacy.

In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017), a nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court unanimously recognised privacy as a constitutionally protected fundamental right. The judgment located privacy within the guarantees of life, personal liberty and other fundamental freedoms. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul’s concurring opinion also discussed the right to be forgotten in the context of informational privacy, while acknowledging that the right must be balanced against competing interests, including public information and freedom of expression.

Informational privacy concerns an individual’s ability to exercise meaningful control over personal information and the contexts in which it is collected, processed, retained or disclosed. It does not mean that every personal fact must remain secret. Information may legitimately be published in court judgments, public registers, news reports and official records. The constitutional question is whether the continued processing and retrieval of that information remains justified in the circumstances.

The right to be forgotten emerges when the continuing digital exposure of personal information causes harm that is no longer justified by a sufficient public interest. A person acquitted of a criminal charge may still find the original allegation prominently displayed in search results, with the final outcome receiving much less visibility. Similarly, intimate information from a matrimonial dispute may remain accessible long after the dispute has been settled. The legal record may be accurate, yet the way it is retrieved can produce a misleading or disproportionate association.

Article 21 does not automatically guarantee a right to erase all historical information. Privacy must be reconciled with other constitutional interests, including freedom of expression, the public’s right to know and the institutional requirements of open justice. The scope of protection therefore depends on the circumstances, the nature of the information and the public interest in its continued accessibility.

The Delhi High Court’s judgment attempts to translate the constitutional protection of informational privacy into a practical remedy. It recognises that the continued presence of information in a database and the ease with which that information is retrieved are different questions. Constitutional privacy can require scrutiny of digital accessibility even when the underlying record is preserved.

OPEN JUSTICE, FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Open justice is a central principle of constitutional democracy. Public access to court proceedings and judicial decisions enables scrutiny of the administration of justice, promotes consistency in legal reasoning and allows citizens to understand how courts exercise public power. Public records also assist journalists, researchers, lawyers and litigants in identifying precedents and examining institutional performance.

The constitutional basis for these interests includes Article 19(1)(a), which protects freedom of speech and expression. The right to receive information and the ability to report on judicial proceedings are important elements of public discourse. Open access to judgments can also support Article 14’s concern with non-arbitrary state action by making judicial reasoning visible and reviewable.

In Swapnil Tripathi v. Supreme Court of India (2018), the Supreme Court recognised the importance of live-streaming proceedings in appropriate cases as a means of strengthening transparency and public access to justice. The broader principle is that judicial institutions should ordinarily operate in a manner that allows public scrutiny, subject to legitimate restrictions required to protect vulnerable persons, confidential information or the administration of justice.

However, open justice does not necessarily require unrestricted name-based searchability of every judicial record for all time. A judgment can remain available to those searching by case number, citation, court or date without making a private individual’s name an unlimited retrieval key for every casual search. The Delhi High Court relied on this distinction when explaining why de-indexing need not amount to the destruction or concealment of the judicial record.

This distinction is especially important in cases involving acquittal, discharge or the quashing of proceedings. Continued public access to the judicial decision may serve an important institutional purpose, while the continued association of a private individual’s name with the original allegation may serve a weaker purpose. In other cases, such as matters involving corruption by public officials, serious public misconduct or issues of continuing public importance, identification may remain necessary for accountability.

Freedom of expression also protects legitimate reporting and commentary. An excessively broad right to be forgotten could be used to suppress accurate reporting, conceal relevant public conduct or weaken the historical record. Journalists and researchers may have legitimate reasons to refer to past proceedings, particularly when those proceedings concern the exercise of public power.

The challenge is therefore not to choose privacy over open justice or open justice over privacy in every case. It is to distinguish the public value of preserving a judicial record from the separate question of whether a person’s name should remain readily discoverable through general search engines. This distinction allows transparency and privacy to coexist without treating either principle as absolute.

PROPORTIONALITY: HOW SHOULD PRIVACY AND PUBLIC INTEREST BE BALANCED?

The constitutional principle of proportionality provides a framework for resolving conflicts between fundamental rights. Under the approach associated with Puttaswamy, a restriction affecting privacy must pursue a legitimate aim, bear a rational connection to that aim, be necessary in the circumstances and maintain a proportionate balance between the benefit pursued and the harm caused to rights.

Applied to the right to be forgotten, proportionality requires an assessment of both the individual’s privacy interest and the public interest in continued identification. The outcome of the legal proceedings is relevant, but it is not the only consideration. The nature of the information, the individual’s role in public life, the sensitivity of the material, the passage of time and the consequences of continued searchability may all matter.

The Delhi High Court’s framework identifies categories in which de-indexing or masking may be justified, including cases involving acquittal, discharge or quashing, matrimonial and purely private civil disputes, and certain sensitive records. The judgment also recognises that relief should not be granted mechanically where a legitimate public interest continues to justify identification.

A proportionality assessment can be organised around four questions:

1.   Legitimate purpose: Is there a sufficient public interest in the continued association of the individual’s name with the record?

2.   Suitability: Does unrestricted name-based searchability materially advance that interest, or is preserving the record through case-based access sufficient?

3.   Necessity: Could the legitimate purpose be achieved through a less restrictive measure, such as de-indexing rather than removing the judgment?

4.   Balancing: Does the public value of identification outweigh the continuing harm to privacy, dignity and reputation in the particular circumstances?

The distinction between de-indexing and erasure is particularly important under this framework. De-indexing can reduce the disproportionate exposure of a private individual while preserving the judicial record for legal research, institutional accountability and public access. Masking may be appropriate where identification itself creates a serious privacy concern, but it requires closer attention to the effect on the integrity and utility of the record.

The analysis should also account for the rights of other affected persons. A judgment may contain information about complainants, victims, witnesses, family members or third parties who have not sought relief. A remedy that protects one individual must not automatically expose another to greater harm. In sensitive cases, the interests of victims and vulnerable persons may justify stronger safeguards than those applicable to ordinary civil disputes.

Proportionality prevents both unrestricted digital exposure and automatic suppression of public information. It requires courts and platforms to evaluate the circumstances rather than treating privacy or transparency as an absolute trump card.

SEARCH ENGINES, LEGAL DATABASES AND DIGITAL INTERMEDIARIES

The right to be forgotten raises questions about the responsibilities of the organisations that make information searchable. Search engines index material from across the internet and arrange results according to their systems. Legal databases organise judgments and orders for research and reference. News websites and social-media platforms may preserve reporting, commentary and personal information long after the original event.

These services perform different functions. A search engine generally directs users to material hosted elsewhere, while a legal database may host the judgment itself and provide tools for searching within its collection. Consequently, a remedy directed at search results is not identical to an order requiring the underlying record to be altered or removed.

The Delhi High Court issued directions requiring search engine operators, including Google, and the legal database Indian Kanoon to implement specified de-indexing and name-based search restrictions in the cases covered by the judgment. The directions required compliance within the prescribed period and addressed the manner in which the relief was to operate. The Court also directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to communicate the relevant directions to search engines and intermediary platforms operating in India

The judgment referred to Rule 3(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, in the context of implementation. However, statutory intermediary obligations, court-ordered de-indexing and a general entitlement to erasure are not interchangeable. The scope of any obligation depends on the applicable legal provision and the terms of the relevant judicial order.

Digital intermediaries are not merely passive participants in the visibility of information. Their indexing and retrieval systems can influence how easily information is discovered, combined and circulated. This does not mean that platforms should independently remove all content that an individual finds harmful. It means that transparent procedures are needed to evaluate requests, implement valid legal directions and preserve legitimate access to information.

A workable framework should include clear criteria for applications, verification of identity and relevant judicial outcomes, notice to affected parties where appropriate, reasons for decisions and a mechanism to challenge refusals or overbroad requests. Platforms should distinguish between a court order affecting specified URLs and a general demand to remove all material associated with a person’s name.

The role of legal databases requires particular care. Their public value depends on the accuracy, completeness and searchability of judicial decisions. Excessive restrictions may impair legal research, precedent discovery and public scrutiny. At the same time, a system that makes sensitive personal information permanently searchable without adequate safeguards can undermine the dignity and privacy of individuals whose circumstances justify protection.

The objective should therefore be accountable digital governance, in which privacy requests are assessed through lawful and proportionate procedures rather than automatic removal or unrestricted disclosure.

IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES AND THE WAY FORWARD

The recognition of the right to be forgotten is only the beginning of a complex implementation process. Judicial records may be hosted on court websites, legal databases, news portals, social-media platforms and third-party archives. A direction addressed to one platform may not eliminate every copy or reference to the same information. The practical effect of de-indexing also depends on how search engines and databases implement the relevant restrictions.

First, clear legal standards are necessary. The law should distinguish between the preservation of a judicial record, its publication by a news organisation, its indexing by a search engine and the masking of an individual’s identity. These activities involve different interests and may require different remedies. A single rule requiring universal deletion would be too blunt for the range of cases involved.

Second, courts and platforms need a transparent process for assessing applications. Relevant considerations should include the final outcome of proceedings, the nature of the dispute, the sensitivity of the information, the individual’s public role, the passage of time and the existence of a continuing public interest. Applicants should not have to rely on informal negotiations or inconsistent platform policies to obtain relief recognised by a court.

Third, the rights of victims and vulnerable persons must receive particular attention. Information that identifies victims of sexual offences, minors or other protected persons may require safeguards under applicable law. De-indexing requests made by accused persons or other litigants should not be assessed in a manner that compromises the privacy or legal protection of victims and witnesses.

Fourth, the framework must preserve access to authoritative judicial records. Courts, researchers, journalists and litigants require reliable access to decisions for legal and public-interest purposes. Where de-indexing is appropriate, the record may remain available through case numbers, citations, court details and dates, subject to any separate restrictions imposed by law or judicial order.

Fifth, the State should consider how data-protection law, information technology regulation and judicial practice interact. India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, provides a statutory framework for the processing of digital personal data, but its provisions must be distinguished from the constitutional and judicial principles governing access to court records. The precise application of statutory rights and obligations depends on the relevant provisions, rules and exemptions. A coherent approach should avoid assuming that the right to be forgotten operates as an unrestricted right to delete any publicly available information.

Finally, judicial review and reasoned decision-making remain essential safeguards. A refusal to grant privacy protection should be capable of scrutiny where it violates applicable law, while an order granting relief should be sufficiently precise to protect legitimate reporting and public access. The framework must guard against both reputational harm caused by permanent digital exposure and misuse of privacy claims to conceal information of genuine public importance.

UPSC DIMENSION

CONCLUSION

The right to be forgotten presents a constitutional challenge that cannot be resolved through a simple choice between privacy and transparency. The Delhi High Court’s judgment in Laksh Vir Singh Yadav v. Union of India and Connected Matters recognises that unrestricted name-based retrieval can cause continuing harm even when judicial proceedings have ended. By distinguishing de-indexing from erasure, the Court sought to protect informational privacy while preserving the availability of judicial records for legitimate legal and public purposes.

The ruling does not establish a universal entitlement to remove all past information from the internet. Its framework requires attention to the nature of the proceedings, the individual’s circumstances, the final judicial outcome and the existence of a continuing public interest. Privacy claims must be assessed carefully so that protection against disproportionate exposure does not become a means of suppressing legitimate reporting or concealing matters of public importance.

The broader constitutional lesson is that digital accessibility must remain compatible with human dignity, open justice and freedom of expression. Judicial records should remain available for accountability and legal research, while the continued association of an individual’s identity with sensitive information should be subject to proportionate scrutiny. In a society where digital memory can be effectively permanent, constitutional governance must determine not only what information may be preserved, but also how, why and under what conditions it should remain discoverable.

RELATED READING

1. Constitution of India — Articles 14, 19 and 21.
2. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017) — recognition of privacy as a fundamental right.
3. Laksh Vir Singh Yadav v. Union of India and Connected Matters, Delhi High Court, judgment dated 29 May 2026.
4. Swapnil Tripathi v. Supreme Court of India (2018) — open justice and transparency in judicial proceedings.
5. Google Spain SL v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (2014) — the European legal framework concerning de-referencing of search results.
6. Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.
7. Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
8. Supreme Court of India — judgments and constitutional principles concerning privacy, proportionality and freedom of expression.
9. Delhi High Court — judicial decisions concerning de-indexing, masking and the right to be forgotten.

PRACTISE QUESTIONS FOR GS2 MAINS

1. (10 marks) Explain the constitutional basis of the right to be forgotten in India with reference to Article 21 and the Puttaswamy judgment.
2. (15 marks) Examine the tension between informational privacy and open justice in the context of digital access to judicial records.
3. (15 marks) Discuss the significance of proportionality in balancing the right to be forgotten with freedom of expression and the public’s right to know.
4. (20 marks) “The constitutional protection of privacy in the digital age requires restrictions on disproportionate discoverability without undermining public access to judicial records.” Critically examine with reference to the Delhi High Court’s 2026 framework.

PRACTISE QUESTIONS FOR PSIR

1. (10 marks) Explain the significance of informational privacy for individual autonomy in contemporary constitutional democracies.
2. (15 marks) Analyse the relationship between the right to be forgotten, freedom of expression and the principle of open justice in India.
3. (15 marks) Examine the role of judicial review and proportionality in resolving conflicts between individual rights and public interest in digital governance.
4. (20 marks) “Digital technologies have transformed the relationship between privacy, public accountability and state regulation.” Discuss with reference to constitutional liberalism, informational autonomy and the right to be forgotten.