The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court has directed its Registry to anonymise the identity of a 37-year-old individual in digital versions of a 2018 judgment and related case records on the High Court’s website. The court ordered the petitioner to be referred to as "ABC" in all case documents, citing the Right to Privacy and the Right to be Forgotten under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, according to medianama.com.
The court’s order mandates redaction of the individual’s name from the cause title, pleadings, citations, judgments, and orders in the case files. The State, represented by the Additional Public Prosecutor, did not oppose the petitioner’s claim to privacy and left the decision to the court. The petitioner sought delinking of the judgment from public access, not destruction of court records, the ruling clarified.
The bench reasoned that the Right to Privacy is a fundamental right intrinsic to Article 21 and includes the Right to be Forgotten. It balanced the democratic principle of access to information with individual privacy, especially since the criminal proceedings were quashed and no public interest is served by keeping the information accessible online. This ruling underscores the court’s recognition of privacy rights in digital judicial records.
The Bombay High Court’s order sets a precedent for anonymisation in court records where public interest is absent. The Registry must now implement these changes in the digital case files, marking a concrete step in applying privacy rights to online judicial information.