NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday was told that a recent ruling allowing the deletion of accused persons’ names from judicial records and news reports after acquittal or discharge could widen the scope for censorship.
The submission was made before a bench comprising Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia during the hearing of a petition challenging an earlier judgment of the HC that recognised the “right to be forgotten” and laid down a framework for removing the names of accused persons from judicial records in certain cases. The case will be heard on July 21.
The challenge relates to the HC’s May 29 verdict, in which the court had held that search engines should not indefinitely display judicial records through name-based searches in cases that are private in nature or have concluded with an acquittal, discharge, quashing of proceedings or settlement.
Legal database platform Indian Kanoon filed the petition. It seeks to set aside the order passed by a single-judge bench directing the platform to de-index specific orders and disable its name-based search function for those cases. The petitioner said the ruling undermines the principles of open justice.
The petition argued that the order adversely affects the right to information and the principle of open justice. “The verdict has expanded the scope for censorship and laid down an arbitrary standard for de-indexing, i.e., removal of a specific web page or website from a search engine’s database, and disabling name-based searches, which violates the platform’s right to freedom of trade, occupation and profession, granted under Article 19 (1)(g) of the Constitution,” the petitioner said.
Freedom of expression
A plea has been moved against the recent HC ruling allowing the deletion of accused persons’ names from news reports after acquittal. The plea argued an individual’s wish to erase their litigation history can’t be used to restrict the freedom of speech and expression.