Delhi HC recognises right to be forgotten, lays down framework for de-indexing judicial records

📌 Summary:

• The Delhi High Court (Justice Sachin Datta) held in a 144-page judgment delivered on May 29, 2026 that the "right to be forgotten" flows from the right to privacy under Article 21

• The right enables individuals to seek removal of personal information from public digital accessibility once it no longer serves a legitimate public purpose

• The court laid down a framework for de-indexing of judicial records from search engines and masking of personal identifiers from publicly accessible court records

• Builds on K.S. Puttaswamy (2017) which recognised privacy as a fundamental right, and aligns with EU GDPR Article 17 ("right to erasure")

• The ruling tests the balance between privacy, open justice (public access to court records), and free speech under Article 19(1)(a)

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS Paper 2 — Judiciary; Fundamental Rights (privacy under Article 21); intersection with the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023.

📝 Prelims Facts:

• K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) — 9-judge bench unanimously held privacy is a fundamental right under Article 21

• DPDP Act, 2023 — Section 12 provides a "right to erasure" of personal data

• EU GDPR Article 17 (2018) is the global benchmark for the "right to be forgotten"

• Justice K.S. Puttaswamy was the lead petitioner against Aadhaar in the privacy case

🔑 Key Term: De-indexing — Process by which search engines remove specific URLs from search results for given keywords, making the underlying content harder to locate (but not deleted at source).