The Supreme Court Friday issued notice on a plea filed by IE Online Media Services Private Limited (The Indian Express digital) challenging a December 2025 Delhi High Court judgment, bringing into focus whether the “right to be forgotten” (RTBF) can be used to seek deletion or de-indexing of past news reports after an accused has been discharged.
A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan stayed the December 2025 judgment of the Delhi High Court that directed the removal of several URLs and clarified that the order “would not operate as a precedent”.
The dispute stems from a defamation suit filed by a banker seeking removal and de-indexing of three news reports – these were uploaded on November 18, 2020; October 27, 2023; and August 19, 2024 – after he was discharged in a money laundering investigation.
The reports relied on public records, including press releases of the Enforcement Directorate and court proceedings. The first report incorporated his detailed comments when he was reached for comments. The second report related to ED’s raids, arrests and summoning of leaders in four poll-bound states, and his name mentioned as one of the examples of ED investigations. The third report covered the court proceedings where he was discharged by the court.
The reports were accurate when they were uploaded. Subsequent events were also uploaded in the form of updates.
The Patiala House court had granted an interim injunction in November 2025, directing the removal of the URLs. It noted that the “articles obviously impact the integrity and reputation of the plaintiff in an adverse manner” and that the “permanence of digital information and easily accessible online records are causing potential harm to the plaintiff despite his exoneration from the case”.
The Delhi High Court upheld that order, observing that the media’s right to expression “is not absolute and stands correspondingly delimited by the right of an individual to dignity and reputation traceable to Article 21,” and observed that the “perpetual digital availability of such materials… raises serious concerns of enduring reputational harm and stigma.”
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Challenging the ruling, the petitioner argued that the order “sets a dangerous precedent and opens the floodgates of invocation of the RTBF by any person named in any news report regardless of the content of the news report.” It contended that the directions have the effect of “concealing by erasure matters of public record and public interest in a manner that distorts history.”
Senior Advocate Arvind Datar submitted that the reports were “factual, accurate, and based entirely on public record” and that a subsequent discharge does not render earlier reporting defamatory.
The plea further states that the order “not only allows the incorrect invocation of the RTBF but upholds it…while trampling on the competing right of freedom of the press.”
“While the RTBF is a facet of the Right to Privacy and consequently the Right to Life and Dignity under Article 21, the right cannot be invoked to create a chilling effect on the freedom of speech or in a manner to erase true and accurate historical facts and events,” the plea states.
The matter is now listed for March 16.
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