India has no statutory right to be forgotten. It does have courts that have granted it anyway.
This is one of the most misunderstood areas in Indian reputation work, and the confusion costs people money. Agencies quote for “right to be forgotten filings” as though a defined process exists. It does not. What exists is a line of High Court decisions, an unevenly applied principle, and a new data protection statute whose reach is still being worked out.
Here is what the position actually is, and what it means for you.
Where the right comes from
There is no provision in Indian law titled “right to be forgotten.” The argument is built instead on the right to privacy, which the Supreme Court recognised as a fundamental right under Article 21 in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017). That judgment discussed informational privacy and the idea that individuals should have some control over their personal data, including the ability to limit its continued circulation.
It did not create an enforceable takedown mechanism. Everything since has been High Courts applying that principle to individual facts.
What the courts have actually done
The acquittal cases are the strongest. The most-cited example is a 2021 Delhi High Court matter in which a petitioner who had been acquitted sought removal of the judgment from online databases, on the basis that its continued availability was damaging his prospects abroad. The court granted interim relief directing de-indexing while the matter was heard.
Similar reasoning has appeared in the Orissa, Karnataka and Kerala High Courts, generally where a person was acquitted, discharged, or was a victim rather than an accused.
Matrimonial and personal matters have succeeded too, particularly where a woman’s name appeared in judgments concerning divorce, sexual offences or family disputes. Courts have been notably more willing to mask names in these cases.
What has generally failed: requests from people who were convicted, requests concerning matters of genuine public interest, requests from public figures about their public conduct, and requests aimed at ordinary journalism rather than court records.
The counterweight courts keep citing
Judicial records are public, and open justice is itself a constitutional value. Courts have repeatedly noted that a blanket right to erase judgments would undermine the integrity of the legal record.
The practical consequence: relief tends to be narrow. Courts more often direct that a name be masked in a specific database, or that a particular URL be de-indexed, than that a judgment be deleted. That distinction matters enormously when you are deciding whether litigation is worth it.
Where the DPDP Act fits
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 gives a Data Principal the right to seek erasure of personal data from a Data Fiduciary, subject to exceptions — including where retention is necessary for compliance with law.
Two things to understand before treating this as a solution.
It is a data protection statute, not a search-results statute. Its natural application is to companies holding your data, not to newspapers holding an archive or courts holding a judgment. How far it reaches journalistic and judicial material is genuinely unsettled.
Implementation is ongoing. The framework has been rolling out in stages. Anyone telling you the DPDP Act gives you a clean route to erasing a news article is describing a possibility, not a procedure.
What this means practically
If you were acquitted or discharged, and the judgment or a case aggregator is surfacing on your name, you have a genuine argument. This is the strongest category and it is worth speaking to an advocate about.
If aggregator sites are republishing court data, distinguish them from the primary source. Aggregators frequently come down when the court portal does not, and that alone can transform your search results. This is usually the cheapest meaningful win available and it is routinely overlooked.
If your concern is a news article about something that genuinely happened, the right to be forgotten is unlikely to help you. Suppression is the honest route.
If you were convicted, be realistic. Courts have been unsympathetic, and an unsuccessful petition creates a fresh public record of you seeking to hide the original one.
The cost nobody mentions
A writ petition is public. Filing one to remove your name from a judgment creates a new judgment with your name in it, discussing why you wanted the first one hidden.
Courts have sometimes anticipated this and permitted anonymised filings. But it is the first question to raise with counsel, and it is the reason a proportion of these cases should never be filed at all.
What we do and do not do here
We are not a law firm. What we do is identify exactly which URLs are surfacing, separate primary court sources from aggregators, pursue the aggregators through ordinary content removal and de-indexing routes, and give you a straight view on whether a judicial route is realistically worth the exposure.
Where it is, we work alongside your advocate. Where it is not, we will tell you — including when the honest answer is that suppression will get you a better outcome for less money and less risk.
Remove Negative Articles is an online reputation management company. We are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice; references to legislation and case law are general information, not advice on your situation. Where a matter requires it, we work alongside licensed counsel. Outcomes cannot be guaranteed in advance.