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The Right to Be Forgotten in India: Reconciling Privacy with the Public's Right to Information: Author: VAIBHAV SINHA

In the digital age, records and archives preserve the past and search engines re-present every snippet of information about you to anyone who enters your name. In India this permanence creates tension between informational privacy expression open justice and public accountability. This article traces the contours of the right to be forgotten in the Indian privacy jurisprudence leading up to the Delhi High Court’s judgment in Laksh Vir Singh Yadav and argues that the right to be forgotten should be interpreted as a right to protect against disproportionate persistence of information on digital media rather than as a right to cleanse history

ARTICLE

VAIBHAV SINHA

9/13/2026

ABSTRACT

In the digital age, records and archives preserve the past and search engines re-present every snippet of information about you to anyone who enters your name. In India this permanence creates tension between informational privacy expression open justice and public accountability. This article traces the contours of the right to be forgotten in the Indian privacy jurisprudence leading up to the Delhi High Court’s judgment in Laksh Vir Singh Yadav and argues that the right to be forgotten should be interpreted as a right to protect against disproportionate persistence of information on digital media rather than as a right to cleanse history.

KEYWORDS

Right to Be Forgotten, Informational Privacy, Article 21, De-indexing, Open Justice, Freedom of Expression, Digital Privacy, Proportionality

INTRODUCTION

Digital records preserve the past while search engines can repeatedly place fragments before anyone who enters a person's name. Privacy is not equivalent to secrecy. The right to be forgotten is not a right to cleanse history. The fundamental issue in this area is one of balancing informational privacy, dignity and autonomy under Article 21 with the principles of open justice, public access and accountability under Article 19(1)(a). This article contends that the right should be understood as protection against disproportionate digital persistence while allowing continued accessibility to information that still serves a legitimate public interest.

I. UNDERSTANDING PRIVACY AND THE RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN

Puttaswamy recognises informational control as a dimension of privacy connected with autonomy and dignity.[1] The right to be forgotten operates within that field and may require reduced accessibility rather than destruction. De-indexing removes a result from a name-based search masking replaces identifying particulars in a public digital record while retaining the complete record internally. Erasure is more extensive. Hence, the different remedies cannot be equated because if that is done, the right to be forgotten would either be an empty right or one that assumes its harshest form.

II. EVOLUTION OF THE RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN IN INDIA

Gobind accepted privacy as an aspect of personal liberty, while R. Rajagopal connected it with Article 21 but distinguished private life from matters contained in public records.[2] Puttaswamy constitutionalised privacy and supplied the vocabulary of dignity, autonomy and informational control. Vasunathan showed that judicial records could in sensitive circumstances be handled to reduce name-based exposure. Jorawer Singh Mundy confronted the continuing consequences of online judicial material after acquittal. Vysakh K.G., however, stressed open justice and legislative standards, while permitting case-specific intervention.[3]

The developments so far have been to tilt the scale in favour of control over personal information and secondly to a sliding scale of the remedy rather than an unconditional right to erase history. Google Spain, comparatively, recognised search-engine de-referencing; European doctrine does not automatically determine the Indian balance.[4]

III. LAKSH VIR SINGH YADAV v. UNION OF INDIA

Laksh Vir Singh Yadav translates that foundation into a structured remedy. The batch included acquitted persons, matrimonial litigants, persons incidentally named in proceedings and individuals alleging continuing digital harm to dignity, reputation and life prospects.[5] The Court distinguished de-indexing from alteration of the judicial record. De-indexing operates at the search-engine or legal-database level, the judgment remains available through case number, citation, court and date. Masking operates on the public digital record, replacing names or necessary identifiers with neutral references while preserving the unredacted record internally. Neither remedy amounts to erasure.[6]

The Court evolved a multi-factor balancing test to consider the nature of the information, the period since its occurrence, the role of the person in public life, and the correctness and completeness of the information. The factors are not to be applied mechanically. serious limitations are imposed in cases where the public interest is weighty, such as convictions for offences against women and children, breach of public trust, and conduct of public figures in their public capacity. On the other hand, acquittal, discharge, quashing, settlement, or the closure of private or matrimonial litigation would give rise to a strong claim for relief in the absence of any continuing public interest.[7] That distinction also matters institutionally: the Court did not require search engines to reassess the merits of judgments; the remedy remained confined to discoverability, while the judicial record stayed intact and available for genuine legal, institutional, and accountability purposes. Under this approach, proportionality is a concept mediating between informational privacy and public access rather than allowing historical deletion.

IV. RECONCILING PRIVACY WITH PUBLIC INFORMATION AND OPEN JUSTICE

The conflict is not simply privacy versus information. A judicial record may remain preserved and accessible while becoming less readily retrievable through a person's name. De-indexing can reduce algorithmic amplification without suppressing the record; masking can protect identifiers while leaving reasoning, findings and precedential value intact. This resembles the comparative logic of Google Spain and Hurbain, where accessibility was moderated without destroying underlying material.[8] In India, however, the governing frame is domestic: Article 19(1)(a) protects expression and publication, while open justice supports transparency and public confidence. The question is whether name-based discoverability still serves a legitimate public purpose proportionate to the privacy harm.

V. THE DIGITAL PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION ACT, 2023

The DPDP Act, 2023 provides a statutory context for correction and erasure of personal data, but commencement is phased. The Government's 13 November 2025 notification brought selected provisions into force immediately, while sections 3–5, 7–17 and related substantive provisions, including section 12 on correction and erasure, were scheduled for commencement eighteen months later.[9] Thus, the statutory right to correction and erasure should not be treated as fully operative before that date.

CONCLUSION

Indian RTBF jurisprudence is moving towards calibrated control rather than disappearance. Puttaswamy supplies the constitutional foundation; Laksh supplies a practical framework; proportionality provides the balancing mechanism. De-indexing and masking can reduce disproportionate digital persistence without destroying records. This is a regime that is not meant to erase history but to ensure that digital permanence does not outstrip dignity to the extent that legitimate public access and open justice become meaningless.

References

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

  • Prashant Mali, ‘Privacy Law: Right to be Forgotten in India’ (2018) 1 NLIU L Rev 1. [NLIU Law Review Volume-VII]

  • Omkar Upadhyay, ‘Enumerating the Unenumerated: Recognizing the “Right to be Forgotten” in Indian Jurisprudence’ (2020) 1 NLIU L Rev 468. [NLIU Law Review Volume-IX Issue-II]

  • Harikartik Ramesh and Kali Srikari Kancherla, ‘Unattainable Balances: The Right to be Forgotten’ (2020) 1 NLIU L Rev 400. [NLIU Law Review Volume-IX Issue-II]

  • G S Bajpai and Ivneet Kaur Walia, ‘Need for Implementing the “Right to Be Forgotten” in India’ (2023) 65 JILI 1. [SSRN.com]

[1] Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1, especially paras 248 and 325

[2] Gobind v State of Madhya Pradesh, (1975) 2 SCC 148; R. Rajagopal v State of Tamil Nadu, (1994) 6 SCC 632.

[3] Vysakh K.G. v Union of India, 2022 SCC OnLine Ker 7337.

[4] Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD), Mario Costeja González, Case C-131/12, EU:C:2014:317.

[5] Laksh Vir Singh Yadav v Union of India, 2026 SCC OnLine Del 4491, paras 1–3.

[6] Laksh Vir Singh Yadav (n 5), paras 188–191, 210–213.

[7] Laksh Vir Singh Yadav (n 5), paras 195–207, 215–217.

[8] Google Spain (n 4); Hurbain v Belgium [GC], App No 57292/16 (ECtHR, 4 July 2023).

[9] Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023