Right to be forgotten: Supreme Court orders court registry to remove from internet personal details of parties in a sexual offence case

In a brief but significant order augmenting the right to be forgotten as a facet of the right to privacy, the Supreme Court has directed that personal information of a petitioner and a respondent in a sexual offence case be masked on the internet so that their details are not thrown up by search engines. .A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MM Sundresh ordered the court registry to explore options in this regard after the petitioner and the respondent pleaded the ‘right to be forgotten’ and ‘right of erasure’ as being facets of right to privacy."We thus, call upon the Registry of the Supreme Court to examine the issue and to work out how the names of both the petitioner and respondent No.1 along with address details can be masked so that they do not appear visible for any search engine," the Court directed.The registry has to do needful within three weeks so that the details of the parties are not visible on search engines, the Court said.The present case concerned offences committed on the modesty of a woman leading to sexually transmitted diseases (STD).The petitioner moved an application contending that display of her name in the public domain with respect to offences leading to STD was causing immense loss to her due to social stigma and infringement of her personal privacy.She pleaded the ‘right to be forgotten’ and ‘right of erasure’ as intrinsic to right of privacy.She, therefore, requested that her name be removed/masked along with the address, identification details and case numbers to the extent that the same are not visible for search engines.The respondent also joined in with the same request.The Supreme Court acceded to the request, and asked the registry to work out a solution. .The Supreme Court in its landmark judgment of 2017, which held privacy as a fundamental right, had made a mention of the right to be forgotten. The Delhi High Court had, in August 2021, issued notice in a plea moved by two businessmen seeking the removal of news articles from the internet on their past arrest and trial in a criminal case after their acquittal in the said case.The Madras High Court also had the occasion to consider the issue when a man moved the Court seeking the redaction of his name from Court judgments and orders after he was acquitted in the case.The Madras High Court had initially opined that an accused person who is eventually acquitted of all charges is entitled to have his name redacted from court orders. However, ultimately, the Judge concluded that the right to be forgotten cannot exist when it comes to judgments of the Court.In 2020, the Kerala High Court had admitted a plea seeking erasure of the petitioner’s personal details from a Google search result.The Orissa High Court has also lamented the lack of a mechanism to permanently delete information from the internet in order to safeguard the right to be forgotten. The same was observed in a bail application moved by a person who videographed intimate photographs of his sexual assault on a woman and uploaded them on Facebook..Advocates Sunita Rao and Gunmaya Mann represented the petitioner. Advocates SK Kulkarni, M Gireesh Kumar, Ankur S Kulkarni, and Uditha Chakravarthy represented the respondent..[Read Order]