The “right to be forgotten” has come into focus after a recent ruling by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court directing that a petitioner’s identity be masked after criminal proceedings against him were quashed. The ruling raises a question that could matter to thousands of litigants: If you’ve been acquitted, discharged or your case has been quashed, can you ask a court to remove your name from online records? Here’s what the law says.The right to be forgotten allows a person to ask a court to remove, mask or limit access to personal information available online when it no longer serves a public purpose and continues to harm their privacy or reputation.While recognised abroad, especially in the European Union, India does not yet have a specific law governing it. However, courts have increasingly recognised it as part of the fundamental right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution, drawing from the Supreme Court’s landmark K.S. Puttaswamy (2017) judgment.In its latest ruling, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court dealt with the case of a 37-year-old environment and climate change consultant whose criminal proceedings had been quashed after the parties settled the dispute. The court said that while public access to information is important in a democracy, it must be balanced against an individual’s right to privacy. Since the petitioner had been legally cleared years ago, it held there was no continuing public interest in identifying him online and ordered that his identity be anonymised. Similar relief has also been granted by the Bombay, Delhi and Kerala High Courts in individual cases.Q. Can anyone seek the right to be forgotten?No. There is no automatic right to remove one’s identity from court records, and courts decide such requests on a case-by-case basis.Persons who have been acquitted, discharged, benefited from quashing of proceedings, settlements or compounding, as well as those involved in matrimonial and private civil disputes, may approach High Courts under Article 226 of the Constitution seeking directions to mask, de-index or grant other appropriate relief.The Delhi High Court has observed that “India presently lacks a comprehensive statutory framework explicitly governing the right to be forgotten”, while the Bombay High Court, in a 2022 ruling, held that “each case will have to be assessed independently on its merits.”Q. What reliefs can High Courts grant?Story continues below this adDepending on the facts of the case, courts have generally granted three kinds of relief:Masking or redactionDe-indexing or de-linkingComplete removal of a judgment from a court websiteQ. What is the difference between masking and de-indexing?Masking means the court removes or replaces a person’s name and other identifying details in a judgment while leaving the judgment itself online. Readers can still access it using the case number, citation or other court details, but the person’s identity is no longer disclosed.De-indexing means directing search engines or online platforms not to display a judgment in a simple name-based search.Story continues below this adFor example, if someone searches “Danny Iyer court case”, the judgment may no longer appear in Google’s search results. However, it may still be accessible through its case number, citation or on the court’s website.The key difference is that masking requires a direction to the court or its registry, while de-indexing involves directions to private platforms or search engines.In some cases, courts have also ordered complete removal of judgments from their websites while preserving the official records internally.Q. What factors do courts consider before granting relief?Before granting relief, courts weigh several factors, including:the nature of the information and whether it concerns intimate aspects of a person’s private life or professional conduct;whether the information continues to remain relevant;whether the person holds a public office or role that demands greater transparency;the accuracy of the material;its impact on the person’s dignity, privacy and autonomy;whether there is a legitimate public interest in continued disclosure;the impact on free speech and the principle of open justice.Courts also consider whether the person has been acquitted or had proceedings quashed, whether continued disclosure causes disproportionate harm, and whether anonymisation would undermine transparency in the judicial process.Q. Can the right to be forgotten be refused?Story continues below this adYes. The right to be forgotten is not absolute, and courts can refuse relief where public interest outweighs an individual’s privacy.Relief is generally refused in cases involving convictions for offences against women or children, breaches of public trust, or matters concerning the public conduct of public figures.