Right To Privacy Incorporates Right To Be Forgotten; No Public Interest Served By Keeping Litigant’s Information On Internet After Proceedings Are Quashed: Bombay High Court

The petitioner approached the High Court seeking issuance of a direction to the Registrar General of the Court to mask and anonymise his name and personal identifiers in the publicly accessible digital versions of the orders passed in a Criminal Application available on the High Court’s website.

The Division Bench of Justice Urmila Joshi- Phalke and Justice Nivedita P. Mehta held, “It is well settled that the right to privacy is fundamental right and forms an intrinsic part of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The concept of right to privacy incorporates the right to be forgotten. In the age of internet, every piece of information that finds its way to the individuals acquitted of any offence or when criminal proceedings against such persons are quashed, emanates from the most basic notions of proportionality and fairness. While the access to information is a fundamental aspect of democracy, the same cannot be divorced from the need to balance the right to information of the public with the individual’s right to privacy. This is especially so after the quashing of the proceedings, no public interest can be served by keeping the information alive on the internet.”

Advocate S.B. Tiwari represented the Petitioner while Additional Public Prosecutor V.A. Thakare represented the respondent/State.

Factual Background

The case as put by the petitioner was that a First Information Report was registered against him. He preferred an anticipatory bail application and was protected by the Court. The dispute was amicably resolved between the parties. In view of the settlement, the Division Bench of the Court allowed the Criminal Application and quashed the First Information Report as well as the subsequent proceedings. It was brought to the Court’s notice that despite complete legal exoneration over seven years ago, the unredacted digital records of the District Court judgment remained prominently accessible online and indexed by external search engines. As per the petitioner, this algorithmic permanence invariably surfaced during routine professional and educational background checks, severely prejudicing his career progression and causing profound social stigma to his family and minor daughter.

It was in such circumstances that he approached the Court seeking enforcement of his fundament right i.e. right to privacy (right to be forgotten) by seeking the masking of his personal identifiers from the digital portals of the High Court and District Court, and the delinking of these records from search engine indexability.

Reasoning

On a perusal of the facts of the case, the Bench noted that the First Information Report was registered against the petitioner, but during the pendency of the investigation, the dispute was amicably resolved between the parties and the Division Bench quashed the First Information Report. It was further noticed that currently, no criminal proceedings were pending against him.

Reference was also made to the judgment of the Delhi High Court in ABC vs. State of Another (2024) wherein it has been reiterated that the right to privacy is a fundamental right and forms an intrinsic part of Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

Considering the fact that the dispute was amicably resolved between the parties and the limited prayer of the petitioner was to the extent of the digital record, the Bench allowed the petition and directed the Registry to remove his name from the records and its search results.

“The Registry in future instead of the name of the petitioner being shown in the cause title or the pleadings, citations, judgment and orders passed in the said cases are directed to show that the petitioner as “ABC”, it ordered.

Cause Title: ABC v. State Of Maharashtra (Neutral Citation: 2026:BHC-NAG:8407-DB)

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