Right to Be Forgotten: Removing Court Records Online

If a decades-old case still surfaces your name on the first page of Google, you may be able to ask for it to be de-indexed or your name redacted. India has no dedicated statute spelling out a right to be forgotten, but courts have begun to recognise it as part of the constitutional right to privacy. This explainer covers what the right to be forgotten in India actually means, when court records can be de-indexed, and the practical steps to seek relief.

The short answer: the right is real but limited. It is balanced against open justice, free speech, and the public's right to know. Whether your request succeeds depends heavily on the facts, the nature of the case, whether you were acquitted, how much time has passed, and the harm continued visibility causes you.

What "Right to Be Forgotten" means in India

The right to be forgotten is the idea that a person should, in some circumstances, be able to have outdated, irrelevant or unfairly prejudicial personal information removed from public-facing sources, most commonly search-engine results that link to old court orders, FIRs, news reports or matrimonial proceedings.

In India, this right is not created by a single section of law. Instead, it has been read into the fundamental right to privacy, which a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court recognised as part of Article 21 of the Constitution in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, decided on 24 August 2017. Since then, several High Courts have entertained pleas to mask litigants' names in published judgments and to de-index court records from search engines.

It is important to separate two related but different requests:

• De-indexing or de-listing asks a search engine to stop returning a particular page when someone searches your name. The underlying page may still exist.
• Redaction or masking asks the court or the legal database to remove or anonymise your name in the judgment text itself.

Key takeaway. Decide at the outset which of the two you actually need, because they go to different people and require different orders. De-indexing is cosmetic and reversible: the judgment stays on the court's website and on every database, and anyone who searches the case number still finds you. Redaction is durable but harder to get, because it changes the public record. Most petitioners who describe themselves as wanting to be "removed from Google" in fact need redaction at source, and an order that stops at de-indexing leaves the problem substantially intact.

Two judgments worth knowing

Two decisions map the practical boundaries better than any abstract statement of principle.

In Jorawer Singh Mundy v. Union of India, W.P.(C) 3918/2021, the Delhi High Court by an order of 12 April 2021 granted interim relief to an acquitted petitioner whose old judgment kept surfacing on search engines, directing that the judgment be removed from public search results pending the petition. It is the early template for an interim de-indexing order pleaded on privacy and rehabilitation.

In Karthick Theodore v. Registrar General, W.A.(MD) No. 1901 of 2021, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court at Madurai on 27 February 2024 went further, directing a legal database to take down the judgment and the Registry to redact the acquitted appellant's name and publish only the redacted version. That is the shape of the order most acquitted petitioners actually want.

Neither decision creates a general right of erasure. Both turned on an acquittal, on the absence of any continuing public interest in identifying the individual, and on demonstrable prejudice from the record remaining searchable.

Three decisions mark out where this right currently sits.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023

India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) introduces a statutory right to correction and erasure in Section 12. A data principal may request erasure of her personal data, and the data fiduciary must erase it unless retention is necessary for the specified purpose or for compliance with any law in force. This is the closest codified cousin to the right to be forgotten.

It does not, however, reach court records, and the reason is written into the Act. Section 17(1) disapplies the whole of Chapter III, which contains the data principal's rights including Section 12, where the processing is:

• necessary for enforcing any legal right or claim, under Section 17(1)(a);
• by any court or tribunal or other body entrusted by law with a judicial, quasi-judicial, regulatory or supervisory function, where necessary for performing that function, under Section 17(1)(b); or
• in the interest of prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of any offence, under Section 17(1)(c).

On timing, the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 were notified on 14 November 2025 with a phased commencement. The Data Protection Board provisions took effect immediately, the consent-manager rule after twelve months, and the core operational rules, which carry the machinery for exercising rights such as erasure, only from 13 May 2027. Until then the statutory route is largely theoretical, and in any event Section 17(1)(b) keeps judicial records outside it.

Common mistake. Building a right to be forgotten petition on the DPDP Act. It is the first statute people reach for and it is the wrong one for a court record: Section 17(1)(b) removes judicial processing from the reach of the Section 12 erasure right altogether, and the operative rules do not bite until May 2027 in any case. The claim that works is the constitutional one, privacy and dignity under Article 21 as recognised in Puttaswamy, balanced against Article 19(1)(a) and open justice, pleaded with evidence of concrete present harm.

Why court records are treated differently

Court proceedings in India are presumptively open and public. Judgments are published so that justice is seen to be done, precedent is accessible, and citizens can scrutinise how the law is applied. This principle of open court frequently collides with an individual's wish to be forgotten.

Courts therefore weigh competing interests:

Courts have leaned towards granting relief in cases involving acquittals, sensitive personal matters, and victims of sexual offences, where masking is often mandatory, while being cautious where the public interest in the information remains strong.

When de-indexing of court records is more likely

Based on the reasoning courts have adopted, your request to remove your name from a court judgment online is generally stronger when:

1. You were acquitted or discharged, and the lingering record unfairly brands you. This was the decisive fact in both Mundy and Karthick Theodore.
2. The case involves a sensitive subject, such as matrimonial disputes, sexual offences, or matters affecting a child or minor.
3. A long time has passed and the information no longer serves any live public interest.
4. You can show concrete ongoing harm, such as lost job offers, visa refusals, social stigma, threats or harassment, evidenced rather than asserted.
5. You are a private individual, not a public figure whose conduct remains a matter of legitimate public debate.

Conversely, requests are weaker where you are a public official, the matter is recent, a conviction stands, or the information is of continuing public importance. A pending appeal against an acquittal will usually defeat the request outright.

Statutory protections that already mandate masking

Even without invoking the broad right to be forgotten, some categories are protected by existing law, and here you are enforcing a statutory bar rather than asking for a discretionary balance:

• Victims of sexual offences. Disclosure of identity is itself an offence. Under the earlier code this was Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code; it is now Section 72 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, headed "Disclosure of identity of victim of certain offences", which punishes printing or publishing the name or any matter that may make known the identity of a victim of the offences in Sections 64 to 71 with imprisonment of either description up to two years and fine.
• Children in conflict with law and children in need of care. Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 bars any report in any media disclosing the name, address, school or any particular that may lead to identification.
• POCSO matters. The identity of the child is protected under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, and the media reporting restrictions there operate independently of any privacy claim.

Note that the criminal law framework itself has changed with effect from 1 July 2024: the Indian Penal Code, 1860 is now the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 is now the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 is now the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. Section numbers have been renumbered. Always confirm the provision applicable on the date of your matter, and cite both where a proceeding straddles the changeover.

How to apply: practical routes

There is no single right to be forgotten form. In practice, relief is pursued through one or more of these channels:

Search engines and databases frequently decline informal requests for court records and ask for a court order, which is why a writ petition before a High Court is often the most effective route. A well-framed petition builds on privacy and dignity, the absence of any continuing public interest, and evidence of present harm, and it asks for relief in the alternative: redaction at source, failing which de-indexing.

What to put in the file before you go to court

1. The outcome document. The acquittal, discharge, quashing or closure report, certified, is the single most important paper. Without it the petition is asking a court to hide a live allegation.
2. A record of where the material appears. Dated screenshots with visible URLs, the search terms used, and the position in results. Print them; a court will not run the search for you.
3. Evidence of harm. Rejection emails, a visa refusal, a withdrawn job offer, a broken engagement, messages showing harassment. Assertion of stigma without proof is the commonest reason these petitions fail.
4. Proof that you asked first. The written requests you sent to the database and the search engine, and their replies or silence. This shows the court that judicial intervention is necessary rather than convenient.
5. The passage of time, quantified. Date of the FIR, date of acquittal, and the years since. Courts respond to a timeline, not to the word "old".
6. The absence of public interest, argued. Say plainly that you are a private individual, hold no public office, and that no live controversy attaches to the case.

Four of those documents carry most of the weight.

Deadline warning. There is no limitation period for a writ petition, but delay is fatal in a different way: High Courts refuse relief on laches, and a petitioner who says the record is causing urgent harm while having tolerated it for six years invites the obvious question. Equally, if your acquittal is subject to an appeal that is still within time or pending, file nothing yet. Move once the acquittal has become final, and move promptly after the harm crystallises, not years later.

What this means for individuals and businesses

For individuals: If an old FIR, an acquittal, a matrimonial case or a quashed proceeding keeps surfacing your name online and is causing real harm, you may have grounds to seek de-indexing or masking. Gather evidence of the harm and of the case outcome, especially any acquittal or quashing order, before approaching a court.

For businesses: Companies sometimes seek removal of old litigation, regulatory orders, or director-related disputes from search results. The bar is higher here because corporate and regulatory information often carries strong public interest, and a company is not a data principal at all. The DPDP Act's erasure right applies to the personal data of individuals, not to a company's litigation history. Where the concern is a named director, the claim belongs to that individual, and it is still weighed against the public interest in knowing who ran the company.

Frequently Asked Questions

For the statutory text, see the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 on the official India Code portal at indiacode.nic.in.

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws change and every situation is different; please consult a qualified advocate about your specific matter.

Related guides and where to get help

If this is a live problem rather than background reading, our cyber crime practice handles these matters from Bengaluru, including for clients who cannot attend court in person. These guides go deeper on the neighbouring questions:

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• Fake AI Personas, Catfishing and "Digital Arrest": What Indian Law Says About Online Impersonation
• Your Legal Right to Your Medical Records in India (and How to Get Them When a Hospital Stalls)