Now Reading: Karnataka High Court upholds right to be forgotten under Article 21
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Karnataka High Court upholds right to be forgotten under Article 21
The Karnataka High Court has ruled that the right to be forgotten is part of the right to informational privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution. Justice M. Nagaprasanna directed Google, Indian…
The Story in Brief
The Karnataka High Court has ruled that the right to be forgotten is part of the right to informational privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution. Justice M. Nagaprasanna directed Google, Indian Kanoon, and court registries to mask the name of a woman acquitted in a 2019 criminal case under the Immoral Traffic Act and other laws. She later obtained refugee status and permanent residence in Sweden, but search results still listed her as an accused, hurting her job prospects. The court said an acquittal must have practical effect in the digital sphere, citing the Supreme Court's Puttaswamy judgment. Similar orders have been passed by the Delhi and Bombay High Courts recently.
The Indian Opinion
The court's sweeping language about acquittals overriding digital records will please privacy advocates, but it feeds a one-sided narrative that the right to be forgotten is a settled principle. It is not. Indian Kanoon's objections, undefined tests, no harm assessment, free speech curbs, are real. The real test will come when the Supreme Court hears appeals against these orders and decides whether Article 21 can trump Article 19(2) without a law.
Source: medianama.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
