Right To Be Forgotten: Bombay High Court Directs Masking Of Litigant's Name In Online Court Records After Quashing Of FIR
Observing that no public interest can be served by keeping information relating to a person's alleged involvement in a crime alive on the internet once the proceedings arising from it have been quashed, the Bombay High Court recently directed the Registrar General to mask the identity of a litigant who had invoked his "right to be forgotten".
The Court further underscored that the right to privacy, an intrinsic facet of Article 21 of the Constitution, encompasses the right to be forgotten.
Sitting at the Nagpur seat, a division bench of Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke and Justice Nivedita Mehta observed,
"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 when after the quashing of the proceedings, no public interest can be served by keeping the information alive on the internet," reads the order authored by Justice Joshi-Phalke.
The bench passed the order on a plea filed by a man, booked in an FIR lodged way back in October 2017. The said FIR was however, quashed by a division bench of the High Court in November 2018 after the complainant and the petitioner accused, amicably settled their dispute.
"Despite complete legal exoneration over seven years ago, the unredacted ditigal records of the District Court judgment remain prominently accessible online and indexed by external search engines. This algorithmic permanence invariably surfaces during routine professional and educational background checks, severally prejudicing the petitioner's career progression and causing profound social stigma to his family and minor daughter," the petitioner argued.
Therefore, he petitioned the bench to enforce 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.
"Specifically, he says that there must be a delinking of the judgment from the Court website. Notably, the petitioner does not say, as indeed he cannot, that the Court records should be destroyed. The prayer is limited to the availability of the case details and the judgment on the Court system website, i.e. a resource that is publicly accessible. Considering the fact that the dispute is now amicably resolved between the parties and limited prayer of the petitioner is to the extent of digital record i.e. mask the details of the petitioner from the judgment and orders from the Court system website, which requires to be allowed," the judges opined.
Therefore, the bench directed the Registry to mask the petitioner's name and replace it with the initials ABC in all the records.
With these observations, the bench disposed the plea.
Appearance:
Advocate SB Tiwari appeared for the Petitioner.
Additional Public Prosecutor VA Thakare represented the State.
Case Title: ABC vs State of Maharashtra (Criminal Writ Petition 470 of 2026)
Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Bom) 330