Preserving the record: On the right to be forgotten

📌 Summary:

• Context: Delhi High Court order on May 29, 2026 (Justice Sachin Datta) on the 'right to be forgotten' has reignited tension between two constitutional principles
• Two competing principles: (1) Open justice — allows public scrutiny of courts, public understanding of law, creates a historical record of administration of justice (2) Right to informational privacy — recognised by SC in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India (2017); gives individuals control over personal information
• Core argument: With digitisation of court records, the persistence of digital information has altered the consequences of publicity; the right to be forgotten must accommodate open justice WITHOUT breaching privacy
• Delhi HC's reasoning (criticised by the editorial): (1) Simply updating records will not suffice — search engines excerpt small portions without context (2) Open justice does NOT demand discoverability of cases via the accused's name (3) Updating official records does not propagate to mirror/copies on other websites
• Editorial's counter-argument: The real problem is incompleteness, not discoverability. If a court acquits or discharges a person, anyone searching the case should also find that acquittal — not have the case erased
• International precedent: 'Right to be forgotten' first arose in Europe, where it is weighed against freedom of expression and public interest
• Solution proposed: (1) Make judicial records wholly public AND updated to prominently reflect acquittals/discharges (2) Judiciary should impose conditions on platforms indexing legal information to refresh databases regularly (3) Display results with proper context — this protects BOTH fundamental rights and addresses the root cause
• Reference case: Indian Kanoon matter (2024) — court records are official acts of the state; obfuscation will have ramifications for the public record

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS2 — Fundamental Rights (Article 21 privacy), separation of powers, role of judiciary; GS3 — digital infrastructure, data protection. Useful for Mains essays on rights vs accountability.

📝 Prelims Facts:

• 'Right to be forgotten' is part of the right to informational privacy under Article 21
• Recognised in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) — declared privacy a Fundamental Right
• Originated in EU under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Article 17
• DPDP Act, 2023 (India's data protection law) does NOT explicitly codify the right to be forgotten but includes a right to erasure
• Delhi HC order: May 29, 2026; Bench: Justice Sachin Datta

🔑 Key Term: Open Justice — the constitutional principle that judicial proceedings, records and decisions must be accessible to public scrutiny, enabling accountability of courts and public understanding of the rule of law.