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Right to be Forgotten Available to Accused Once Acquitted: Madras HC
Right to be Forgotten Available to Accused Once Acquitted: Madras HC
An accused who was eventually acquitted of all the charges would be entitled to get his name redacted from court orders to protect his right to privacy, it was observed by the madras high court on Friday 16th July 2021. The right to privacy plays an important role in the life of a human being. Their privacy is their priority and their fundamental right. All these observations were made by the Hon’ble Justice N Anand Venkatesh after a man who was earlier accused of offenses u/s 417 and 376 of IPC was acquitted of all charges by the High Court and had moved a plea to get his name redacted from court records.in the eyes of law after the acquittal, the petitioner was no longer an accused it was argued. In the petitioner’s case, the bench had ruled that the prima facie, merit, and his name should be redacted from the court.
A response from Members of the Bar and the concerned authorities as well as invited by the Bench and decided to write a detailed judgment on the issue. After the apex court’s ruling in the case of Puttaswamy vs Union of India. As per the bench after the ruling in the above case, the right to privacy was recognized as the fundamental right. And then the name of the person gets redacted from the records of a court.
In today’s world the first impression is always based on the google search even in the cases where the information is irrelevant, unauthentic still the first impression is always based on google search this was remarked by Justice Vekatesh. And the 2nd most important thing was noted that when someone types the petitioner’s name on google, court orders appear wherein he is shown as accused even though he got acquitted. And from all these things the reputation of the petitioners in the eyes of law seriously gets impacted even without committing any offenses or the act. It is not good for the petitioners that their reputation will get impacted.
Further, it was stated by the bench that the center was in the process of finalizing the data protection bill,2019 from which the privacy of the person the data will be protected effectively. Data protection bill plays an important role in the life of a person because privacy is the most important for all and if in any case that privacy will get impacted then that will harm them.
In the recent Delhi High Court case a reference was also made and that case allowed redaction of the petitioner’s name in a similar case. In Bar and Advocate’s Association in Madurai and Principal Bench of the High Court, it was asked by the registry to publish the order and the bench will hear the case of 28th July.
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