“The Fourth Estate [the media] should consider masking, delisting and deleting the names of persons acquitted from criminal cases from their respective online digital records, and not drive such people to courts to seek directions for deletion of their names,” the High Court of Karnataka has said.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna made these observations while directing the High Court’s registry to mask the name and other personal details of a 27-year-old petitioner, who was given a clean chit in a criminal case, from the court’s digital records to honour his right to live with dignity.
In any crime, the court said, “once the accused gets acquitted honourably, or discharged by a competent court of law, or the High Court quashes criminal proceedings in exercise of its power under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and such orders become final, the shadow of crime, if permitted to continue in place of shadow of dignity, on any citizen, would be travesty of the concept of life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
“The direction would be only to enable the internet forget, like the humans forget. If it is allowed to stay on record, the internet will never permit the humans to forget,” Justice Nagaprasanna observed while relying on the apex court’s judgement in K.S. Puttaswamy’s case on right to privacy.
‘Right of Erasure’
Pointing out that the Personal Data Protection Act, notified on August 11, 2023, which will come into force from the date of publication in the official gazette, also recognises the right of erasure of personal data, the court said that evolving laws across the globe are moving towards the right to be forgotten, and right of correction and erasure.
Quoting a 2018 judgment of the Queen’s Bench of the United Kingdom in NT1 Vs Google LLC in which the bench had declined to accept Google’s contention on delisting, had pointed out that essence of this judgment is that “even an accused who has been discharged or acquitted honourably by a competent court of law has a right to live with dignity”.
The High Court also took note of a direction issued by the Supreme Court to mask names of a couple in a case involving offence of modesty of women and sexually transmitted diseases, and a 2023 order of the High Court of Delhi in directing various media platforms to remove name of an accused as a criminal case against him was quashed by way of a settlement with the complainant woman.
Background of the case
The petitioner was booked on complained filed by the father of a girl for allegedly sending sexually intimidating message to his daughter through social media. However, on investigation, the police filed a “B” report stating that it was a “false” case. The “B” report was accepted by the jurisdictional court resulting in closure of the case against the petitioner.
He approached the High Court in October 2021 seeking bail, but his petition was closed in February 2022 as the police by then had filed the ‘B’ report.
However, in the present petition, he sought directions to the High Court’s administration, the Google India Private Limited, and the indiakanoon.com for removal of his name in the online digital records as particulars of his earlier petition along with his name was being displayed on searching his name in the internet. The petitioner had pointed out that he was losing job offers despite being found innocent as his name gets displayed in internet search projecting him as an accused.
Claim of HC’s administration wing
Though Google and Indiakanoon.com had masked his name during the pendency of the petition, the High Court’s administration wing had argued that the request of the petitioner for masking his name and personal details should not be acceded to.
“Merely because he is discharged on accepting the ‘B’ report, or an accused gets acquitted, would not mean that his name should not figure as an accused... The deeds committed by the accused will always follow him,” it was argued on behalf of High Court’s administration. Justice Nagaprasanna rejected the contentions on behalf of the Registrar-General.
Stands on higher pedestal
He observed that the “petitioner, who was once an accused becomes blame-free today, and hence he stands on a higher pedestal than any of the accused who would get acquitted after a full blown trial.”
“If the result of due process of law is absolving of any person of alleged guilt, those persons become the ones who would get a right to live with dignity, having no blame against them,” the High Court observed.
