In Laksh Vir Singh Yadav vS. Union of India & Ors. (2026), Justice Sachin Dutta of Delhi High Court delivered a 144-page long judgement dated May 29, 2026, wherein, he concluded:"Google LLC/ Google Inc./Google India Private Ltd. and all other search engine operators are directed to de-index the relevant content, orders, judgments and associated reportage from name-based search results, and shall be complied in the same manner, as a direction under Rule 3(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. 285. Indian Kanoon (iKanoon Software Development Private Limited) is directed to restrict name-based search functionality within its platform in respect of the records of the petitioners identified above. The judgments and orders shall remain accessible on Indian Kanoon by case number, citation, Court details and date. 286. All petitioners in respect of whom de-indexing has been directed shall be at liberty to seek masking from the concerned Court that rendered the original order or judgment. 287. The Union of India, through the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), is directed to ensure compliance with these directions by the respondent intermediaries within the aforementioned time period. MEITY shall immediately communicate these directions to Google LLC/ Google Inc., Indian Kanoon and all other search engine operators and intermediary platforms operating within the jurisdiction of India, and shall file a compliance affidavit within a period four weeks from today."
The 30-page long Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 has been framed under Section 87 (1) (z) (zg) and Section 87 (2) of section 87 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY). It was published in the Gazette of India on February 25, 2021, in the aftermath of Supreme Court's unanimous judgement dated August 24, 027 in K.S. Puttaswamy vs. Union of India, 2017 10 SCC 1.
The judgement reads: "141. The right to be forgotten, understood as subsuming the right of an individual to seek removal or restriction of personal information from public digital accessibility, where such information is no longer relevant or serves no legitimate public purpose, flows naturally and necessarily from the constitutional recognition of informational privacy under Article 21." He pointed out: "146. India presently lacks a comprehensive statutory framework explicitly governing the right to be forgotten. However, the absence of specific legislation does not preclude Constitutional Courts from recognizing and enforcing this right."
Justice Dutta recorded that "Google has submitted that it performs a passive and neutral function" to state that "This is inaccurate. By actively collecting, indexing, organizing and serving personal data through name-based search results, and by deriving commercial revenue through advertising linked to those search results, Google is an active processor of personal data, which materially contributes to the invasion of informational privacy. The same has also been traced by the European Court of Human Rights, in the judgment rendered in Hurbain v. Belgium (Grand Chamber, Application No. 57292/16)...." He noted that "the functioning of Google (and similar search engines) is entirely automated and algorithmic....A purely mechanical process driven by algorithmic logic cannot constitute an exercise of freedom of speech and expression." Justice Dutta referred to the decision in Google Spain, S.L. vs. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) & Mario Costeja González (Case C-131/12) to state that "the activities of Google cannot be equated with those of the 'publishers of websites'. In Google Spain, it has been observed:“35 In this connection, it should be pointed out that the processing of personal data carried out in the context of the activity of a search engine can be distinguished from and is additional to that carried out by publishers of websites, consisting in loading those data on an internet page.” 176. It follows that Google’s indexing and serving of judicial and other records in response to name-based searches is not an exercise of any fundamental right that can be legitimately pitted against the petitioner’s fundamental right to informational privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution. Such search engines are not ‘passive channels of information’, instead they are in the nature of a ‘commercial platform’, deriving revenue by leveraging user searches and associating them with advertising opportunities."
Justice Dutta drew on Justice S.K Kaul's concurring judgement as part of 9-Judge Constitution Bench in K.S. Puttaswamy vs. Union of India (2017). Justice Kaul observed: “629. 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 the nth extent for all and sundry to know....631. 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 footprints remain. It is thus, said that in the digital world preservation is the norm and forgetting a struggle....634....People change and an individual should be able to determine the path of his life and not be stuck only on a path of which he/she treaded initially. An individual should have the capacity to change his/her beliefs and evolve as a person. Individuals should not live in fear that the views they expressed will forever be associated with them and thus refrain from W.P.(C) 1021/2016 & Connected Matters Page 73 of 144 expressing themselves. 635. Whereas this right to control dissemination of personal information in the physical and virtual space should not amount to a right of total eraser of history, this right, as a part of the larger right to privacy, has to be balanced against other fundamental rights like the freedom of expression, or freedom of media, fundamental to a democratic society. 636. Thus, the European Union Regulation of 2016 [ Regulation No. (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27-4 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive No. 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation).] has recognised what has been termed as “the right to be forgotten”. This does not mean that all aspects of earlier existence are to be obliterated, as some may have a social ramification. If we were to recognise a similar right, it would only mean that an individual who is no longer desirous of his personal data to be processed or stored, should be able to remove it from the system where the personal data/information is no longer necessary, relevant, or is incorrect and serves no legitimate interest. Such a right cannot be exercised where the information/data is necessary, for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information, for compliance with legal obligations, for the performance of a task carried out in public interest, on the grounds of public interest in the area of public health, for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes, or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. Such justifications would be valid in all cases of breach of privacy, including breaches of data privacy.”
Drawing on the Supreme Court's decsion, Justice Dutta wrote: "....the present proceedings are directed at enforcing the fundamental rights of the petitioners, originating from Article 21 of the Constitution, the rights that the Supreme Court in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1, expressly recognized as operating against both State and non-State actors" The relevant observations read: “328. Informational privacy is a facet of the right to privacy. The dangers to privacy in an age of information can originate not only from the State but from non-State actors as well…… 367. Claims for protection of privacy interests can arise against the State and its instrumentalities and against non-State entities, such as, individuals acting in their private capacity and bodies corporate or unincorporated associations, etc., without any element of State participation. Apart from academic literature, different claims based on different asserted privacy interests have also found judicial support. Cases arose in various jurisdictions in the context of privacy interests based on (i) common law; (ii) statutory recognition; and (iii) constitutionally protected claims of the right to privacy.....644. The right to privacy is a fundamental right. It is a right which protects the inner sphere of the individual from interference from both State and non-State actors and allows the individuals to make autonomous life choices.”
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