Supreme Court denies plea to hide a divorce judgment, saying all orders are regularly uploaded. Court allows name masking but stresses open justice can’t be compromised.
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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court of India on Thursday (Mar 20) refused to accept a request to remove a judgment from its official website. The request came from a couple who are fighting a legal case and wanted their privacy to be protected.
But the court made it clear that all its orders are always uploaded on the website as a routine process. The court also said that it cannot make special changes just for one case.
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A bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol, and Sandeep Mehta explained that it is possible to keep a balance between a person’s privacy and the rule of open justice. The court said that one way to do this is by hiding the names of the people involved in the case in the court order. The bench also shared that the names of the couple were already hidden even when the matter was listed.
This matter once again brings attention to the ongoing discussion about the “right to be forgotten”. This right is about whether a person can ask to remove their personal information from public records. In court matters, this often means a fight between privacy and the public’s right to access court documents.
In the hearing, the lawyer of one party said that the order should not be uploaded because both individuals are lawyers who work in the Supreme Court. But the court did not agree to stop uploading the order.
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The bench said clearly:
“All orders are uploaded on the website. That’s a regular practice. How can we do away with the rules and the practice for one case? We can mask the names like we do in many such cases.”
The lawyer then said that the court’s registry still shows the woman as the wife of the man, and uploading the order would reveal their identity.
But the bench asked sharply:
“But did not your marriage take place? If the registry records you as someone’s wife, how is that wrong?”
About their marriage problem, the bench said that their marriage had completely broken down. The court ordered that both should not post any photos on social media. It also passed an order to dissolve the marriage and removed all old accusations and comments that were made in earlier court judgments.
This situation comes at a time when courts are thinking about a bigger legal question—should the “right to be forgotten”, which is part of the basic right to privacy, also apply to court orders? Normally, court judgments are public documents.
The Supreme Court gave the right to privacy the status of a fundamental right in 2017 in the famous KS Puttaswamy case. In that case, a nine-judge bench said that a person should have control over their own personal information. The court also said that privacy helps people avoid unwanted attention.
Later, some High Courts have supported the idea of the right to be forgotten. For example, the Madras High Court told legal websites to delete judgments that showed the name of a person who was proven innocent in a sensitive case.
But on the other hand, the Kerala High Court and Gujarat High Court said that court records must stay public.
Now, the Supreme Court is looking at this matter in two different cases. Both these cases are being looked at together.
One of them was heard in July 2024. At that time, a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud looked into this matter in a case related to Indian Kanoon, a website that shares court judgments.
This case started when the Madras High Court asked Indian Kanoon to remove a judgment in which a man was found not guilty in a sexual assault case. The reason was that the man’s name should not stay on the internet.
During the hearing on July 24, 2024, the Supreme Court said that it had doubts about removing whole judgments from the internet. The court warned that if this rule is taken too far, it could cause serious problems.
The judges said that while it is okay to hide names in very sensitive cases, removing entire judgments from public access could lead to dangerous consequences.
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