Disabling name-based court record searches may pose 'herculean' challenge: HC

E-PaperSubscribeSubscribeEnjoy unlimited accessSubscribe Now! Get features like The Delhi high court on Wednesday observed that permitting name-based searches across legal databases and domains for court records is in the public interest, and that disabling such searches would pose a “herculean” challenge. Senior advocate Akhil Sibal opposed the appeal stating that only Indian Kanoon had challenged the verdict, while the other intermediaries against whom the direction was issued had complied with it. (HT Photo/Representational)A bench of justices C Hari Shankar and Vinod Kumar said that restricting searches to case-specific details alone would make it difficult for users to locate and access judgments. “If you access the judgement by going into the subject involved, it is a herculean effort to do that. It is not even remotely a substitute to remove the name (based search). With the writ petition number, case details, you will never be able to access any judgment. If the single judge says that one of the considerations which can give the balance is public interest, public interest is in favour of access to this,” the judges said. The court made these remarks while hearing an appeal filed by Indian Kanoon against a single judge’s May 29 ruling directing the legal database platform to de-index and disable name-based searches across all its platforms and domains for court records and news articles of certain individuals to give effect to the right to be forgotten. De-indexing is a directive issued to a private platform that does not result in the erasure of a judicial record, which remains accessible on court websites and legal databases. It merely removes the concerned name as a searchable retrieval key, thereby restricting easy access to the record through name-based searches. Also Read I Boss’s stern behaviour not suicide abetment: Supreme Court On May 29, the single judge created a judicial roadmap for enforcing the right to be forgotten, setting down detailed legal principles for when names can be removed from search results of search engines and legal databases or masked in court records. The single judge, while considering petitions filed by 39 individuals including persons acquitted of criminal charges, parties to matrimonial disputes, and individuals whose names appeared incidentally in judicial records despite not being parties to the proceedings, directed de-indexing. While recognising the right to be forgotten as an integral facet of the fundamental right to privacy, the judge said that the courts while considering the de-indexing relief must assess the information’s character, outcome of the concluded proceedings, an individual’s public role of the individual concerned, and the accuracy and continuing relevance of the information. In the high court, the platform’s lawyer Arvind Datar, submitted that by virtue of this direction in the verdict all the reports concerning a person will have to be removed. In its petition, the platform stated that the single judge laid down an arbitrary standard for de-indexing and disabling name-based searches in cases where information is considered no longer relevant or lacking a legitimate public purpose. Senior advocate Akhil Sibal, appearing for an individual who was discharged in the case 10 years ago, opposed the appeal, submitting that only Indian Kanoon had challenged the verdict, while the other intermediaries against whom the direction was issued had complied with it. “It (directions in the judgement) have been implemented across the board. The idea behind de-indexing is to remove the level of accessibility,” Sibal submitted. The court fixed September 2 as the next date of hearing after the parties said that the same raised “serious issues” on various aspects including the right to privacy. Also Read I Supreme Court asks NTA where things stand on 2024 exam reforms plan The platform’s petition contended that the concepts of “relevance” and “legitimate public purpose” are broad, vague, and undefined, and that the absence of a clear and exhaustive framework identifying the categories of cases in which names should be masked could lead to inconsistent judicial approaches. This, the platform argued, risks arbitrary censorship and unjustifiably restricts the retrievability and searchability of court records. The petition further stated that the verdict, directed global de-indexing without an evidentiary fact-finding assessment of harm, and merely on bare assertion of harm. It added that the verdict has arbitrarily and in violation of the fundamental right to equality, made directions for disabling name based search functionality only against one legal database even though there are several other case management platforms available online for cataloging and searching judgement/orders of various Indian court and tribunals. Also Read I ECI, not court’s prerogative to ensure homeless included in SIR: HC The direction, it said, creates a classification discrimination against the platform.