BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday issued notice to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, Google India and others, on a petition filed by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, Justice AHMD Nawaz, seeking directions to remove all defamatory content still present on Google platforms even after a certain case was dismissed, remove URL and prevent reproduction of further materials in the same manner.
Hearing the petition filed in 2025 by Justice Nawaz from Colombo in Sri Lanka, Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum passed an order to issue notice and adjourned further hearing to March 16, after hearing the petition filed. Following quashing the case through which defamatory allegations were made, he was elevated as Judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, but defamatory articles continued to circulate, subjecting him to a media trial, as stated in the petition in which “right to be forgotten” verdicts were cited.
In the petition, Justice Nawaz stated that he is aggrieved by the continued presence of defamatory and misleading articles on Google platforms, and approached the Karnataka High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. The publications made without verification of real facts are an affront to the judicial values of virtue, especially of holders of public office of judgeship.
Justice Nawaz contended that despite the Sri Lankan Supreme Court dismissing the case, the news articles were again published by two media houses in Sri Lanka.
They are flagrantly discriminatory, arbitrary and unlawful, and had been maliciously fabricated and disseminated, and the false content remains accessible online, causing harm to his reputation and the integrity of the judiciary.
A search on Google provides the hyperlink to such defamatory posts through its URL, which is damaging and impinges on the name, image and reputation, career and also the petitioner’s personal life.
The petition also stated that the baseless and defamatory web articles laden with vilifying and scandalous messages aimed at an upright judge are capable of inflicting incalculable harm. Such vile attacks do not merely jeopardise the career of an individual judge; they strike at the heart of the entire judicial institution and imperil the very foundation of the rule of law, the petition said.