The Delhi High Court recently ordered the removal of one of its own judgments from easy access.
It comes as an important development for the ‘right to be forgotten.’
What is the case about?
The petitioner was acquitted of certain crimes by the court.
The judgment was freely accessible on the Internet, which the petitioner was unhappy of.
The petitioner thus sought removal of the judgment from a leading database platform and search engines.
The court, as a temporary relief, asked search engines to remove this order from search results.
It also ordered the database platform to block the judgment from being accessed by search engines.
What is the rationale?
The High Court recognised that the petitioner may have a right to be forgotten.
The right to be forgotten is, generally, the right to have information about a person removed from public access.
The idea is that individuals should be able to determine the development of their life in an autonomous way.
Persons cannot be perpetually stigmatised for past conduct.
What is the SC ruling in this regard?
In 2017, the Supreme Court recognised the right to be forgotten as being under the ambit of the right to privacy (specifically, informational privacy) under the Constitution.
It observed that if someone desired to remove personal data from the virtual space, it ought to be respected.
However, the right to be forgotten was subject to reasonable restrictions based on countervailing rights such as free speech.
How is it in practice?
Despite the Supreme Court’s judgment, the right remains underdeveloped in India.
For now, individuals may request data hosts to take down some content.
It may be taken down based on the policies of the respective hosts.
What are the concerns?
There is a general consensus that people should be allowed to modify or delete information uploaded by themselves.
However, whether this extends to information uploaded by third parties is uncertain.
If the person was never convicted, should they continue to bear the infamy is a big question.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a similar case, has disallowed suppression of criticism and accountability, especially against powerful figures.
There may be significant merit to the right to be forgotten.
But, whether it extends to the removal of judgments of courts of record is questionable.
Judgments are published for good reasons. Trials held under public scrutiny act as a check against judicial arbitrariness.
What could have been done?
This is perhaps the first instance of a court ordering the removal of access to its complete final judgment from certain spaces.
Instead, the Delhi HC could have ordered that the name and personal details of the petitioner be redacted.
And the public access to the judgment itself could have been maintained.
The Streisand effect should also be taken into account.
[It is a social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicizing that information, often via the Internet.]
The issue has been listed for a final hearing and the outcome is keenly awaited.
