1/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY, NAGPUR BENCH, AT NAGPUR. CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO.738 OF 2026 ‘ABC’ … Petitioner Vs. 1. State of Maharashtra, through the Police Station Officer, Police Station Kotwali, Nagpur City. 2. The Supreme Court o India, through its Secretary General, Tilak Marg, New Delhi - 110 001 3. The Registrar General, High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Fort, Mumbai-400 032. 4. The Registrar (Judicial), High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench, Civil Lines Nagpur - 440 001. 5. The Principal District & Sessions Judge, District and Sessions Court, Nagpur, ) Akashwani Square, Nagpur-440 001. … Respondents Shri S. M. Mate Advocate for petitioner. Smt Hemlata Jaipurkar, Assistant Government Pleader for respondents CORAM : BHARATI DANGRE & URMILA JOSHI-PHALKE, JJ. DATED : September 17, 2026 2026:BHC-NAG:12472-DB 2/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 Judgment:- (Per : Bharati Dangre, J.) 1. The petitioner, when he was a student aged 18 years and residing in rented premises in the city, came to be arraigned as an accused in Crime No.209/2016 which invoke provisions of Juvenile Justice Act, 1986 and he was charge-sheeted. During the course of investigation, he was arrested but was released on bail within 24 hours. He faced Summary Criminal Case before the Judicial Magistrate First Class and despite an attempt of the prosecution to prove the charges against him, it could not succeed and the learned Judicial Magistrate First Class by the judgment and order dated 11/03/2026 acquitted the petitioner under Section 255(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 and cancelled the bond. 2. It is the case of the petitioner that the acquittal is not a technical one but since the prosecution failed to prove its case upon full-fledged contested trial, the Magistrate held that the Panch witnesses who were responsible for seizure did not support the case of the prosecution and no independent witness was examined and the Investigating Officer admitted that he did not record the statement of any independent person from the locality and subjected to medical examination and since no material was brought on record in his possession, with several other factual and legal flaws, the finding was 3/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 rendered that the prosecution has failed to establish its case beyond reasonable doubt. State has not preferred any appeal against the judgment of acquittal and the period for preferring appeal has expired. 3. The petitioner has approached this Court in the aforesaid background seeking a relief of masking and anonymising his name and personal identity in the publicly accessible digital versions of the order dated 15/10/2025 passed in Criminal application (APL) No.1125/2024 and even in the present writ petition and to reflect the name of the petitioner as ‘ABC’ in the cause title, pleadings, citations, judgments and any other orders relating to the proceedings. An appropriate writ is therefore sought against the Registrar General, High Court of Judicature at Bombay as well as the Registrar (Judicial), High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench for removing the name and identity from the record and proceedings of the Court and the masking be carried out through the Information Technology wing of the Registry. 4. We have heard learned counsel Shri S. M. Mate for the petitioner and the learned Assistant Government Pleader Smt. Hemlata Jaipurkar for the respondents. 4/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 By consent of the respective parties, we deem it appropriate to issue Rule by making the same returnable forthwith. The petition is taken for final hearing at the stage of admission. 5. According to Shri Mate, in his youth, the petitioner was involved in an offence for which he faced trial, but on completion of trial, he is acquitted of the charges leveled against him and as on date, he has moved ahead in life and he does not want the public at large related or non-related to the proceedings to remember him with reference to the decision delivered by the Magistrate, though he stood acquitted of the charges leveled against him. According to the petitioner, he is in employment and in ordinary course of his career, he would be subjected to periodic background verification and even if he desire that he should switch over to any further job opportunity abroad which should necessarily entail verification of antecedents by such employer and for enabling him to undertake travel, which would warrant an enquiry by Immigration and Visa Authorities. It is in this background, he wants to erase continued digital availability of the record containing the accusation, though it has subsequently resulted into acquittal and is apparent that every search on any media platform would reflect the said accusation and this may prejudice his livelihood and career progression and even result in a profound stigma on his family life. 5/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 6. According to Shri Mate, the right to privacy being recognized as a fundamental right forming an integral part of Article 21 of the Constitution of India and it has also brought within its sweep the Right to be Forgotten. According to him, the highest Court of the country has now safeguarded the individual autonomy and recognized the ability of an individual to control the vital aspects of his life, including the manner in which information concerning him remains available to the world at large. According to the learned counsel, the prosecution after full-fledged trial has failed to establish the accusation which has resulted into an acquittal which has now attained finality and the petitioner stands exonerated of the charges and this acquittal which has attained finality bears the imprimatur of innocence, which must have a practical effect beyond the courtroom and the judicial seal of innocence is entitled to the same recognition in the digital sphere, that it commands within the four walls of the Court. Further according to him, the acquittal which the internet continues to remember is an acquittal for name sake only and as this information shall constantly stays on the internet and any person who has access to any such platform may be prejudiced upon becoming that there was a criminal case registered against him. 7. The learned counsel would invoke the principle of law in this regard as laid down by the Hon’ble Apex Court in case of K. S. Puttaswamy 6/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 (Retd) And anr. vs. Union of India and ors. 2017 (10) SCC 1 which has recognized the Right to Privacy along with Right to be Forgotten being component of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. He would also place reliance upon the decision of the Division Bench of this Court dated 28/02/2022 in Writ Petition No.3499/2021 (ABC vs. Union of India and ors.) decided at Principal Seat whereby relying upon the observations of the Hon’ble Apex Court, the Bench recognized the Right to Privacy to be a constitutionally protected right and issued necessary directions to remove the order and judgment in Summary Criminal Case from the website of the JMFC and in the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG). In addition to the aforesaid, Shri Mate would place reliance upon the decision of Single Bench of Delhi High Court in Laksh Vir Singh Yadav vs. Union of India and ors., 2026 SCC OnLine 4491 where the following question was formulated for consideration:- “ The present batch of petitions raises a question that stands at the intersection of constitutional law and the digital age, viz. whether an individual whose name appears in judicial records that are accessible through internet search engines is entitled, by virtue of the right to informational privacy guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, to seek de-indexing of those records from name-based search results and masking of personal identifiers (including names) from publicly accessible digital versions of those records.” Upon a detailed analysis of the factual matrix involved in each case as well as on consideration of the law laid down by the Apex Court in K. S. Puttaswamy (supra), the learned single Judge expressed the view that the 7/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 “Right to be Forgotten” is a facet of informational privacy and it was so understood as subsuming the right of an individual to seek removal or restriction of personal information from public digital accessibility, where such information was no longer relevant or serve no legitimate public purpose. By appreciating the arguments advanced on behalf of the petitioner and with reference to the various decisions, a conclusion was drawn that the decisive consideration is always whether disclosure serves any integral public welfare function and the answer is in the affirmative. The Single Judge of Delhi High Court laid down the following parameters which read thus:- “220. The following parameters would govern the grant of relief of masking: (i) Only names and personal identifiers are masked, not the substance of the judgment. The reasoning, findings, legal conclusions, case number, court details, relevant dates, etc. remain intact and publicly accessible. The judicial record retains its full institutional, precedential and accountability functions. (ii) The complete and un-redacted version of the judgment is preserved in the court's internal records without exception. Masking applies only to the publicly accessible digital versions. The un- redacted version remains accessible to courts, parties, advocates, and authorities with a legitimate legal purpose. (iii) Masking operates both retrospectively, in respect of the existing publicly accessible digital version and prospectively, in respect of any future digitisation or uploading. (iv) A masking order by the concerned Court constitutes an order of a Court of competent jurisdiction for the purposes of Rule 3(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Upon receipt of such an order, Google and other search engine operators are obliged to de - index the masked judgment from name-based search results and Indian Kanoon' and other hosts are obliged to disable name-based search functionality on their platform/s in respect of that judgment. 8/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 The concerned Court may expressly include this direction in its masking order. (v) The concerned Court retains jurisdiction to review and revoke a masking direction if subsequent circumstances bring the matter within the absolute bars or other categories where relief is not available. (vi) Masking applications must be disposed of expeditiously, having regard to the continuing nature of the harm caused by the availability of personal identifiers in the public digital domain” He would also placed reliance upon the decision of the Madras High Court, wherein the Madras High Court, adopting the same view, permitted masking of the information of the individual petitioner when such information was no longer required to remain in the public domain. 8. Smt. Jaipurkar, learned AGP, does not dispute the legal position about the right of privacy being recognized as an integral part of Article 21 of the Constitution, but she would submit that as far as the Madras High Court’s judgment is concerned, upon an appeal being filed before the Hon'ble Apex Court, the effect of the said judgment has been stayed. 9. The present case involves a right projected as "Right to be Forgotten," but which, at present, does not have any statutory backing in India, this right being well accepted in European context, established by the Luxembourg based-Court of Justice of the European Union, (CJEU) in 2014. The “Right to be Forgotten” being highlighted in a ‘Google Spain case’ that required the Google to remove indefinite, irrelevant or no longer relevant data upon 9/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 request. The Court ruled that the search engines must address request to remove the information that is no longer relevant, in the wake of lapse of time. In the European Union, the Right to be Forgotten is enshrined under Article 17 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which emphasizes the informational self-determination and the right to control the personal data. Several other countries like Canada, Argentina & Japan had adopted the similar laws and upheld the right to demand the search blocks on personal data. 10. Admittedly, India does not have a specific statutory framework recognizing this right, but this concept finds its way in the context of privacy and digital rights. The Constitution Bench of the Hon’ble Apex Court, in the case of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (supra) recognized the right to privacy as a fundamental right under the Constitution, which implicitly includes the right to be forgotten. However, the said right cannot be accepted as an absolute right. The Court has held that the right to privacy must be balanced against the principles of justice, freedom of speech and expression, and legitimate public interest. The right, having been so declared, explicitly recognizes the right of an individual to exercise control over his or her personal data and digital 10/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 footprint. In simple terms, recognition of such right would convey that an individual should be able to seek removal of personal data, when it is no longer relevant or serves any legitimate public interest. This right being somehow synonymous to be the “Right of Erasure”, permitting an individual to remove one's digital footprints when it violates his or her privacy. This right received a broader interpretation in case of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (supra) and the individual's right to control personal data was highlighted in the following words of Justice Kaul:- “The right of an individual to exercise control over his personal data and to be able to control his/her own life would also encompass his right to control his existence on the internet. Needless to say that this would not be an absolute right. The existence of such a right does not imply that a criminal can obliterate his past, but that there are variant degrees of mistakes, small and big, and it cannot be said that a person should be profiled to that extent for all and sundry to know.” “The impact of the digital age results in information on the internet being permanent. Humans forget, but the internet does not forget and does not let humans forget. Any endeavour to remove information from the internet does not result in its absolute obliteration. The foot prints remain. It is thus, said that in the digital world, preservation is the norm and forgetting a struggle.” 11. Pursuant to the said decision and the pronouncement on a relatively novel subject, namely, the “Right to be Forgotten”, understood as a manifestation of the right to privacy, various Courts have considered the said right in the context of the peculiar facts and circumstances placed before 11/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 them. The Delhi High Court in Laksh Vir Singh Yadav (supra) has gone into the details of various facets of implementing this right and focused its attention on the legal parameters for grant of relief of masking and laid down the parameters which we have reproduced above. Continued association of an individual’s name with a judicial record in the public digital domain was held to cause disproportionate harm to the informational privacy, dignity and reputation, which was found to be not justified by any legitimate public interest in the eligible categories. It is particularly noted that in cases of acquittal, discharge or quashing, presumption of innocence requires that the judicial determination of innocence be given full practical effect. Masking gives that determination its full effect at the level of the Court record itself. It is also noted that in cases of settlement, the consensual extinguishment of the proceedings by the complainant removes any basis for the continued association of the individual's name with the record. It is also noted that the intimate details of such proceedings have no legitimate claim to continued name-based retrievability once they have concluded. 12. Applying the principles laid down by the Delhi High Court based on the pronouncement of the Hon'ble Apex Court, when the right to privacy is considered as an integral part of the right of liberty, the petitioner before us seeks relief based upon the recognition of this right. 12/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 Once acquitted of the charges levelled against him and upon the decision of the competent Court having attained finality, the petitioner does not desire to have any association with the said proceedings. In any event, he does not canvass before us that the Court records themselves should be destroyed. What he prays for is that his name and all his personal details associated with the said ruling be erased or removed from the public domain, while ensuring that a proper record thereof is maintained by the Court. However, such information should not remain available for display in the public domain. According to the petitioner, he was falsely implicated in the offence and when the prosecution failed to establish the charges against him by cogent and reliable evidence, he stood acquitted of them. Now, the petitioner does not want that, at any point of time, when any search is made in respect of him on any media platform or on the internet, his association with the criminal case should appear or be made available for viewing, as the same is no longer relevant, he having been acquitted of all the charges levelled against him after a full-fledged trial. Based on the authoritative pronouncement from the Hon'ble Apex Court as well as by relying upon the decision of the Delhi High Court in Laksh Vir Singh Yadav (supra), we do not find it appropriate that the petitioner should continue to be haunted by his association with the criminal charges, as there is an acquittal in his favour and this accusation was levelled 13/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 against him when he was in his prime youth, barely 18 years, but has now moved on in life and has a future ahead. We find that the petitioner is justified in seeking the relief, as he does not want to be unjustly judged on the basis of information which is no longer relevant. Though he was charged with an offence, upon being acquitted, he is desirous that his name be disassociated from the said charges and from the fact that he was arraigned as an accused. Having been acquitted, he seeks to be treated as innocent, as if he never faced any criminal charges. 13. It is also pertinent to note that the petitioner had filed Criminal Application (APL) No. 112 of 2024, which was dismissed by this Court on 15/10/2025. Against the said order, he filed Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 2309 of 2026, which was also dismissed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court on 16/02/2026. All these proceedings were undertaken before the petitioner could secure an acquittal in the trial. As such, in the wake of his clear acquittal, the said proceedings have lost their significance but the record of these proceedings continue to bear his name and identity. The petitioner faced accusations for the charge which definitely do not warrant permanent stamp of criminality on the accused and thereafter, we are informed that he never had brushed with law. 14/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 14. In the wake of the aforesaid, we are of the considered view that the petitioner deserve the relief sought by him, as in no case by granting the said relief, it is going to have an impact on the interests of the public at large. In the wake of the this, we direct respondent nos. 3 and 4, acting through their Information Technology Wing, to mask the name and other personal details of the petitioner appearing in the publicly accessible digital versions of the order dated 15/10/2025 passed in Criminal Application (APL) No. 1125 of 2024 and the judgment and order dated 11/03/2026 passed in Criminal Case No. 7309 of 2016 by the JMFC Court No. 8, Nagpur. The name of the petitioner shall be substituted with “ABC” in the cause title, pleadings, citations, judgments and any orders relating to the said proceedings. His name shall also be removed from the search results of the said portals, and wherever such name require to be mentioned, it shall be reflected as “ABC”. 15. We also issue a direction to the respondent no. 2 - Secretary General of the Supreme Court of India, New Delhi, in his administrative capacity as the custodian of the digital records of its Registry, to mask and anonymize the name and personal identifiers of the petitioner in the publicly accessible digital version of the order dated 16/02/2026 passed in Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 2309 of 2026 and in its record and proceedings and reflect the name of the petitioner as ‘ABC’ and substitute the same in all the search results of the portal. 15/15 30-Cri.WP-738-26 16. The writ petition is made absolute in the aforesaid terms. Pending application(s), if any, stand(s) disposed of. ( Urmila Joshi-Phalke, J.) (Bharati Dangre, J.) Asmita/Ansari Signed by: A.P. ANSARI Designation: PS To Honourable Judge Date: 23/09/2026 17:06:41