In its appeal, India Kanoon said that the single-judge misread the Supreme Court’s privacy verdict in KS Puttaswamy v Union of India. It contended that the judgment’s brief observations on a “right to be forgotten” were obiter dicta (things said in passing) and do not create an enforceable right for litigants to erase names from judicial records.
According to the plea, the “relevance” and “public purpose” test set by the single-judge is vague and could lead to inconsistent, arbitrary outcomes across courts.
As per the appeal,
“The present appellant contests the Impugned Judgment and the directions… on the basis that the recognition of a ‘right to be forgotten’ does not strike a careful balance between the right to information and the principle of open justice under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India and individual claims to ‘right to privacy’ against public records/court records.”
Further, Indian Kanoon has claimed the ruling unfairly singles it out among multiple legal databases, violating its right to equality under Article 14, and unreasonably restricts its freedom to conduct business under Article 19(1(g), since name-based search is central to how lawyers, litigants, and researchers use the platform.
Any redaction of records should originate at the level of court registries rather than being imposed on private platforms, the plea said.
As per the plea,
“Name-based searches are the easiest possible way to query and search legal databases. These name-based searches are the equivalent of searching for case history, case status, or judgments by way of ‘party name’ on this Hon’ble Court’s website. It serves an important purpose in case retrieval.”
