Bombay High Court Orders Anonymisation in Court Records
The Bombay High Court's Nagpur Bench has ordered the anonymisation of an individual's identifying details from digital court records and a 2018 judgment. The decision cites the right to privacy and the right to be forgotten.
The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court has directed its Registry to anonymise the identifying details of a 37-year-old individual from digital versions of a 2018 judgment and related case records. These details will be removed from information published on the court's website.
The court ordered that the petitioner will henceforth be referred to as "ABC" in all court filings, judgments, and orders. The individual's name has also been redacted from the current order.
The state's representative did not dispute the petitioner's right to privacy and left the decision to the court. The court affirmed that the right to privacy is a fundamental right that includes the right to be forgotten. Access to information is crucial for democracy, but it must be balanced against an individual's right to privacy, especially when a criminal case has been quashed and there is no public interest in retaining the information online.
The petitioner did not request the destruction of court records, but only the delinking of the judgment and related information from the court's public database on its website. A criminal case against the individual was registered in 2017 and later settled, leading to the quashing of charges in 2018. The person argued that over seven years after his legal exoneration, his name remained easily accessible via the court's website and search engines, negatively impacting his career and causing social stigma.