Indian Kanoon Moves Delhi High Court Against Order To Remove Articles On PMLA Accused After His Exoneration

Legal search engine Indian Kanoon has moved the Delhi High Court against a trial court order directing it to remove articles and URLs related to a money laundering accused after his complete exoneration in the case, citing his right to be forgotten.

Justice Anish Dayal issued notice in the appeal.

Indian Kanoon was represented by Advocates Apar Gupta and Naman Kumar. Senior Advocate Trideep Pais represented Nitin Bhatnagar.

Although Gupta requested for a stay of the impugned order, however, the same was not granted today by the Court.

“There are many orders of this court on the right to be forgotten. The matter is pending before the Supreme Court. There is no reason (for stay). We are not going to stay the order,” the Court said.

Pais told Court that a similar appeal filed by Indian Express online has been dismissed by a coordinate bench.

The Court asked Pais to file notes of arguments within six weeks in the matter. The case is will be heard next on April 15, 2026. 

Indian Kanoon has challenged the john doe order passed last month. Various other media outlets were also directed to remove URLs.

The judge had said that the man has a right to live with dignity and the articles published with his name cannot be allowed to perpetually remain on online platforms.

The trial court also said that permanence of digital information and easily accessible online records were causing potential harm to him, despite his exoneration from the case.

The defendants before the trial court were ANI Media, Indian Express, The Printline Media, HT Media, Times Internet, Benett Coleman & Company Limited, NDTV, THG Publishing, Indian Kanoon, Google LLC and John Doe (unknown entities).

The trial court judge had allowed the interim injunction filed by a real estate professional, who was accused in relation to the Moser Baer money laundering case registered in 2019. He was arrested in 2023, and was discharged in 2024 on merits.

In his suit, the man had sought removal of the links alleging that they were defamatory and disparaging. It was his case that the phrases used in the URLs were demeaning and that the articles continued to remain accessible and available across the world wide web at the single click from the search engine.