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Informist, Monday, Jun. 1, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Delhi High Court has recognised the right to be forgotten, which is the right of an individual to seek removal or restriction of personal information from public digital accessibility when it no longer serves any legitimate purpose, coming directly from the recognition of the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution. The court said search engines like Google, whose function is entirely automated and algorithmic, do not themselves exercise the fundamental right to speech and free expression and cannot deny persons the right to be forgotten.

 

The court said Google's statement that it performs a passive and neutral function regarding information related to a person is inaccurate. By actively collecting, indexing, organising, and serving personal data through name-based search results and by deriving commercial revenue through advertising linked to those search results, Google is an active processor of personal data, which materially contributes to the invasion of informational privacy, the court said.

 

Google's indexing and serving of judicial and other records in response to name-based searches is not an exercise of any fundamental right that can be legitimately pitted against an individual's fundamental right to informational privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution, the court said. Such search engines are not "passive channels of information". Instead they are in the nature of a "commercial platform", deriving revenue by leveraging user searches and associating them with advertising opportunities.

 

The court said no law authorises Google or any search engine to perpetually index and throw up judicial records in a manner that overrides the individual's fundamental right to informational privacy. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, obliges intermediaries to comply with court orders directing removal or restriction of content, it said. No legitimate aim of sufficient specificity is served by the unlimited and unrestricted name-based searchability of records whose underlying proceedings have been resolved in favour of the individual concerned, it said. 

 

In a society where digital records are virtually indelible, the ability to seek erasure ensures that informational self-determination remains effective, said the court. It protects individuals from perpetual exposure to past events that may no longer bear relevance, while preserving their dignity and autonomy in society, the court said.

 

India currently lacks a comprehensive statutory framework explicitly governing the right to be forgotten, Justice Sachin Datta said. However, the absence of specific legislation does not preclude constitutional courts from recognising and enforcing the right, he said. The right to be forgotten thus reflects the evolution of privacy in response to the permanence of online information, the court said.

 

The court directed search engines like Google and legal database platforms like IndianKanoon.org to de-index the name-based search functionality with respect to judgments, orders, and news reports highlighted by persons who had since been acquitted by the courts. The court was hearing pleas by various persons who had been acquitted of criminal charges, were parties to purely private civil or matrimonial disputes, or whose names appear only incidentally in judicial records of proceedings to which they were not parties.  End 

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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