Jorawar Singh Mundy vs. Union of India (2021) – By Isha
Introduction
The right to be forgotten was recently recognised by the Delhi High Court in the case of Jorawar Singh Mundy vs. Union of India (2021). This was the first time in which a court ordered the removal of access to its complete final judgement from certain spaces.
Facts of the Case
In this case the petitioner was an American citizen, came to India from US in 2009 and after coming he had a case filed against him under the NDPS Act, 1985.
In 2011 he was acquitted by the trial court and all the charges against him were cleared.
When he went back to US, he completed his studies with good academic records and qualifications but he found various hurdles in finding a job since the judgement of the High Court on appeal was easily available on the Internet. So any potential lawyers who would do a background check on him could find the details of the case online and he would be rejected for the job.
So he sent notices to Google India Pvt Ltd., Google LLC, Indian Kanoon and vLex.in to withdrew the verdict from its portal. But only vLex.in did the same. So he filed a writ petition in the Delhi court, requesting the other respondents to remove the judgement from their sites as it infringes the petitioner’s Right to Privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
Issues before the Court?
Which right to be given more preference petitioner’s right to privacy or public’ s right to information?
Whether a court order can be removed from online platforms? Does the concept of Right to be forgotten exist in India?
What did the Court say?
The court stated that currently India does not have the Right to be forgotten which can remove the individual’s personal information from the social media sites permanently.
But, on the other hand it made reference of the European case in which it was stated that the citizens can direct the commercial sites like Google which gather the personal information for profit to delete these findings which are misleading and have become irrelevant.
Also a reference was made to K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India(2017) case which guarantees right to privacy as a Fundamental Right under the Constitution of India, meaning thereby that Google India Pvt Ltd., Google LLC, Indian Kanoon will have to remove this case from their domain.
The Right to be forgotten falls under the purview of an individual’s right to privacy, which is governed by the Personal Data Protection Bill that is yet to be passed by Parliament.
But the stance on whether the right to be forgotten is a fundamental right or not is not very clear but if the pending Data Protection Bill is passed it can become a right.
Other Cases on Right to vote Forgotten
Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan vs. Quintillion Business Media (P) Ltd. – related to ME TOO movement.
Rout vs. State of Odisha – related to removing of obscene videos from Facebook.
X v. YouTube – related to removing obscene videos from YouTube.
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