Nagpur: The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court recently reaffirmed that the constitutional right to privacy includes “right to be forgotten,” directing its registry to anonymise the identity of a man whose criminal case was quashed nearly eight years ago. The court also ordered removal of his name from publicly searchable court records.A division bench of Justices Urmila Joshi-Phalke and Nivedita Mehta passed the order while allowing criminal writ petition filed by a 37-year-old environment and climate change consultant from Jaipur, whose identity was withheld in the proceedings as “ABC.”The petitioner sought directions to mask his name and other personal identifiers from the digitally accessible versions of orders passed in two criminal cases after an FIR registered against him in 2017 at Bajaj Nagar police station in Nagpur was quashed following an amicable settlement between the parties.The petitioner, through counsel SB Tiwari, argued that although he was legally exonerated more than seven years ago, unredacted court records remained available on the high court website and were indexed by internet search engines, adversely affecting his professional opportunities and causing social stigma to his family. He contended that the continued availability of the records violated his fundamental right to privacy and sought anonymisation of his identity from the high court and district court digital portals.The state opposed the petition but did not dispute the petitioner’s right to privacy, submitting that an appropriate order could be passed.Allowing the plea, the bench observed that the right to privacy is an intrinsic part of Article 21 of the Constitution and that the concept encompasses the right to be forgotten. The judges said that where criminal proceedings have been quashed, “no public interest can be served by keeping the information alive on the internet.”Referring to earlier decisions of the Bombay high court and Delhi high court, as well as Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in KS Puttaswamy case, the bench noted that “while the access to information is a fundamental aspect of democracy, the same cannot be divorced from the need to balance the right to information of the public with the individual’s right to privacy.”The court clarified that the petitioner had not sought destruction of judicial records but only anonymisation of his identity in publicly accessible digital records.The bench directed its registry to remove the petitioner’s name from the records and search results relating to two criminal cases and this petition. It also ordered that in all future references, including the cause title, pleadings, citations, judgments and orders in these cases, the petitioner shall be identified only as “ABC.”
