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ARTICLE · 29 MAY 2026

The Right To Be Forgotten In Indian Law: A Landmark Framework

IndiaLaw LLP
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The Delhi High Court has established India's first comprehensive legal framework for the right to be forgotten, addressing whether individuals can seek de-indexing of judicial records from search results and masking of personal identifiers from digital court records.

IndiaPrivacy
Rahul Sundaram
Rahul Sundaram
Aditya Yuvaraj
Aditya Yuvaraj

Delhi High Court Delivers Comprehensive Judgment on De-Indexing, Masking, and the Constitutional Limits of Digital Memory

High Court of Delhi | W.P.(C) 1021/2016 & Connected Matters | 29 May 2026 | Justice Sachin Datta

In a judgment of considerable constitutional and practical significance, the High Court of Delhi has, for the first time, articulated a comprehensive legal framework for the right to be forgotten in India. Delivered by Justice Sachin Datta on 29 May 2026 in a consolidated batch of over thirty writ petitions, the decision in W.P.(C) 1021/2016 & Connected Matters resolves a question that has grown increasingly urgent in the digital era: whether an individual whose name appears in publicly accessible judicial records may invoke the constitutional right to informational privacy under Article 21 to seek de-indexing of those records from name-based search results and masking of personal identifiers from their publicly accessible digital versions.

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