The Delhi High Court has recognized the Right to Be Forgotten as an important part of the fundamental right to privacy under Article 21, creating a framework for removing name-based searchability of certain judicial records from digital platforms.

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• Delhi High Court delivered a 144-page judgment on 29 May 2026 establishing guidelines for implementing the Right to Be Forgotten in digital judicial records.
• Justice Sachin Datta held that the Right to Be Forgotten is an integral aspect of the fundamental right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
• The judgment builds upon the landmark Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India decision, which recognized privacy as a fundamental right.
• The court directed search engines such as Google and legal databases like Indian Kanoon to de-index name-based search results in specified cases.
• De-indexing means a person’s name will not appear in search results, although the judgment can still be accessed through case numbers, citations, or other legal references.
• The framework applies to individuals who were acquitted, discharged, involved in quashed criminal proceedings, parties to private matrimonial disputes, or persons whose names appeared only incidentally in judicial records.
• The court clarified that unredacted versions of judgments will continue to remain preserved in official court records for legal and archival purposes.
• The ruling seeks to balance individual privacy rights with judicial transparency by masking personal identifiers while preserving the legal reasoning and public accessibility of judgments.