[Right to be forgotten] Former Roadies, Big Boss winner Ashutosh Kaushik moves Delhi High Court seeking removal of content related to his past

Ashutosh Kaushik, who won reality television shows MTV Roadies 5.0 and Big Boss, has moved the Delhi High Court seeking the “right to be forgotten” by way of directing Google and others to remove all content related to certain incidents “erroneously committed” in his past [Ashutosh Kaushik v. Union of India & Ors].

Acting on his plea, Justice Rekha Palli issued notice to the respondents.

Besides Google, respondents to his petition are the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Press Council of India, Press Information Bureau and the Electronic Media Monitoring Centre.

Kaushik, through his counsels, referred to news reports including a 2009 traffic violation case and an alleged brawl inside a Mumbai cafe in 2013. He sought to invoke his “right to be forgotten” with respect to these incidents.

Listing out his stints in the television and the Indian film industry, Kaushik’s plea argued that despite his success, he suffered “deep agony”. He also stated that he suffered “utmost psychological pain for his diminutive acts, which were erroneously committed a decade ago as recorded videos, photos, articles of the same are available on various search engines/online platforms.”

The petitioner, through Advocates Akshat Bajpai, Ishanee Sharma and Shreya Gupta, submitted in his plea,

“Right to be forgotten reflects the claim of an individual to have certain data deleted so that third persons can no longer trace them.”

The plea underlined that the right enabled a person to silence the past events of his life that are no longer occurring.

“Thus, the right to be forgotten entitles individuals to have information, videos or photographs about themselves deleted from certain internet records so that search engines cannot find them,” it added.

Arguing that Kaushik had suffered irreparable harm and injury to his reputation owing to the posts uploaded on various social media platforms about a decade ago, the petition contended that it had relevance in the present times.

“Further, until such posts are not taken down, the petitioner's reputation will continue to degrade, get trivialised and tarnished in the eyes of future generations,” it added.

The petitioner argued that the it was responsibility of governments and lawmakers to protect the right to data protection and privacy.

Relying on various grounds for the directions, Kaushik has stressed that people should not be indefinitely reminded of their past mistakes.

“Even when information is lawfully in the public domain or originally shared by the individual with his or her consent, people have a right to make mistakes without being haunted by them indefinitely,” the plea stated.

It was also argued that the failure to recognise the “right to be forgotten” allows a distorted view of individuals to be presented by search engines, which list links to juvenile or other errors in top search results for a person’s name.

The petition highlighted that Article 21 of the Constitution of India guarantees its citizens "right to life”, which in turn includes “right to privacy and live with dignity."

“Justice BN Srikrishna Committee, which drafted Personal Data Protection Bill 2018, had introduced a new right called the Right to be Forgotten, which refers to the ability of an individual to limit, delink, delete, or correct the disclosure of the personal information on the internet that is misleading, embarrassing, or irrelevant,” it added.

The Delhi High Court had recently upheld the right of an individual to be forgotten while granting interim relief to an American citizen of Indian origin who was acquitted of criminal charges.