While ruling in favour of the ‘Right to Forget’, Judge Anju Bajaj Chandna said, “The right to live with dignity and to have peace of mind are integral to the right to life and liberty under the Constitution.” As a result, the Judge restricted further reporting about the individual and directed Google to de-index the URLs mentioned in the complaint.
Complying with the Patiala House court order, Google issued a notice to Indian Kanoon, an online search and archival database for Indian laws and court judgements, informing the platform that it would de-index seven URLs from its search results.
Some context of the Google deindexing case:
For context, Nitin Bhatnagar, a professional banker, filed a petition in the Delhi High Court seeking a “permanent and mandatory injunction” against news articles and republished court judgements in a case where authorities had falsely charged and later acquitted the individual.
In 2019, a case was registered against Moser Baer, a global optical media manufacturer, where the person who wanted to be forgotten wasn’t even mentioned, neither in the charge sheet nor in the complaint filed against the company. However, the Directorate of Enforcement arrested the individual in August 2023, a court granted bail in March 2024, and prosecutors dropped all charges in August 2024, one year after the arrest.
What did the court say on news reporting?
Citing the reasons mentioned above, Bhatnagar filed a complaint seeking an ex parte ad interim injunction to halt the publication and republication of the articles, as well as to de-index, de-list, and de-reference their URLs and content. Despite the discharge, various online media and journals published “defamatory, derogatory and disparaging news,” the court noted in its judgement, which MediaNama accessed from the Lumen Database, where Google voluntarily submits such orders to the Lumen Project to promote transparency.
“The plaintiff [Bhatnagar] has been portrayed as an alleged facilitator in the money laundering case connected to Moser Baer, and the narrative so set up continues to show the plaintiff as an active accomplice. The phrases used by the defendants are demeaning in nature, and the articles continue to remain accessible and available across the World Wide Web at a single click from the search engine Google and Indian Kanoon,” said Judge Anju Bajaj Chandna
The court also noted that certain news articles violated the Press Council of India’s Code of Conduct for Journalists. Judge Anju Bajaj Chandna said the individual “has struggled to find his feet in society ever since August 2023 and has been looked down upon with grave suspicion and mistrust, bringing embarrassment and immense…
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