Media should mask names of persons acquitted in criminal case from digital records: Karnataka High Court

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, High Court of Karnataka said that evolving laws across the globe are moving towards the right to be forgotten, and right of correction and erasure.

The High Court of Karnataka wants the media to consider masking, delisting and deleting the names of accused persons from their respective digital records, and not drive such people to courts to seek directions for deletion of their names.

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.

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.