This article has been written by Reet Babbar, a second year student of University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun

Right to be Forgotten- Meaning

When we discuss the “Right to be Forgotten,” we refer to the rights an individual has to regulate, de-link, or remove internet disclosures of personal information that is factually incorrect, humiliating to them personally, completely unnecessary, or outdated. It is questionable if the Right to be Forgotten can actually be implemented in the realm of digital networking. A committee on data protection law that was formed by the government has emphasized the necessity for a balanced approach to this issue. The Right to Privacy must be balanced with the Freedom of Speech in order for this right to be applicable in a given situation. The Personal Data Protection Bill of 2018 grants individuals this right by requiring that information controllers only keep confidential information for only as long as is required to fulfill the processing objective and also mandates periodic evaluations of such data checking upon its validity and truthfulness. 

Who is entitled to this right in India?

The Right to be Forgotten has its roots in the Right to Privacy that each and every person has because the disclosure or availability of a person’s personal information online infringes that right, necessitating the need for a right to have all of that misleading information about him erased. The Supreme Court of India’s nine-judge bench recognized the right to privacy in the K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India case, also known as the Aadhar Card case, and declared it to be a fundamental right protected by Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, despite the fact that right to privacy was previously not being considered as a constitutionally guaranteed right and hence all the prior judgements were overruled. Thus, it is evident that even if it is not yet recognized in statutes or guaranteed by the constitution, the Right to be Forgotten falls under the purview of Article 21 due to its association with the Right to Privacy in numerous judgments.

Article 21 of the Constitution of India states that “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.” No person should be deprived, as stated in Article 21, stating explicitly that all individuals are covered by its applicability and safeguards, which are not just restricted to those who are Indian citizens. 

Thus, it can be established that even those who are not citizens of India are entitled to the Right to be Forgotten. This right applies to all natural persons, including Indian citizens and foreigners, with the exception of enemy aliens.

Judicial Recognition

All of the legitimacy the Right to be Forgotten has acquired to this point has not been a result of any statute, but rather of court precedents and verdicts that have been ruled in its direction in various situations. It was observed in the case of K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India that “Right of an individual to exercise control over his personal data and to be able to control own life would also encompass his right to control his existence on the Internet.” 

In the case of Jorawar Singh Mundy v. Union of India, the petitioner, an American citizen by birth but an Indian by origin, was charged with a narcotics offense in 2009 while temporarily traveling to India, but both the trial court and the high court ultimately found him not guilty. After returning to America, he finished his law degree, but in the current petition, he complained to the Delhi High Court that whenever a prospective employer checked his background through a google search, it brought up articles about the accusation against him. He attributed this scenario to the fact that despite having excellent educational qualifications he had trouble finding a job. He demanded that three websites be given instructions to remove the judgments. While the petition was still pending, vLex removed it, but Google and Indian Kanoon disputed. The Delhi High Court then decided the matter while taking into account the potential irreparable harm to Mundy’s social life and professional prospects despite the fact that he was found not guilty. Therefore, it was mandated that the judgments be removed from both websites or made inaccessible to the general public. This case is a notable indication of how the right is available not just to citizens but also to non-citizens, since the petitioner in this case was granted protection under this right despite being an American citizen.

Following the 2017 Right to Privacy decision, the High Courts and even the Supreme Court have maintained a broad stance on the subject, explicitly recognizing the Right to be Forgiveness and the Right to be Left Alone. Zulfiqar Ahman Khan v. Quintillion Business Media is an example of one such case. The “Me Too” wave broke out across the nation in May 2019, and Zulfiqar petitioned the Delhi High Court to have two articles against him deleted that had been published on the news website the Quint on the grounds of harassment allegations against him. While the news portals deleted the articles while the matter was pending in the High Court, the court also forbade any republication of the content of those two articles during the dependency of the litigation, recognizing that the Right to be Forgotten is an integral feature of the Right to Privacy, which as we know has been declared to be an intrinsic part of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

Significance of the right

It’s significant to have the right to be forgotten in the era of the internet since we constantly witness the emergence of new search engines, and when we use them, we sometimes discover that the search results have been manipulated or provide information that might be damaging to someone’s reputation. On the internet, perception has a tendency to linger much longer than reality currently does. As a result, it is possible for someone who has been charged with a crime to be found not guilty after a few years, but any articles that were published about his guilt and potential role in the crime may still exist and follow him around for the his entire life. A big downside of the internet has been the ongoing stigma of being criminal and condemned without even committed a crime. There have been cases when somebody released private photos or confidential information about someone only to inflict revenge, and the victim of those actions has continued to suffer ever since because they previously lacked the power and authority to get that information deleted. 

However, with the evolution of this right and its recognition in several legal cases, it equalizes it all in advantage of the privacy rights of individuals because if an individual has not committed any crime, then there ought to be a mechanism that prevents them from suffering for the all of their lives, and in instances of revenge, there should not simply be a right to be forgotten but also a right to have the data erased from all sources including internet domains.

Conclusion

The Right to Be Forgotten in India is still in its formative stages; therefore we must keep an eye on how it advances over time and how the judiciary interprets it at times in subsequent instances because it is not yet an inalienable right but rather one that is evolving. There is currently no rigid framework within which the judiciary must restrain itself when interpreting this right, and there may be a variety of circumstances in which the right is not also assured to many individuals owing to the fact that other rights, such as the right to freedom of expression and the right to information, cannot be undermined while granting this evolving right the absolutism to incapacitate other legal protections.

References

• https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-7112-right-to-be-forgotten-in-india.html
• https://gdpr.eu/right-to-be-forgotten/
• https://articles.manupatra.com/article-details/Right-to-be-forgotten
• https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/right-to-be-forgotten-2
• https://indiankanoon.org/doc/127517806/
• https://lexpeeps.in/jorawar-singh-mundy-v-union-of-india-ors/
• https://blog.finology.in/constitutional-developments/right-to-be-forgotten

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