New Delhi
Invoking his “right to be forgotten”, reality show star Ashutosh Kaushik on Thursday sought a direction from the Delhi High Court to the Centre and Google that some of his videos, photos and articles be removed from various online platforms as they have a “detrimental effect” on his life.
Kaushik has referred to news reports, including a 2009 traffic violation case and an alleged brawl inside a Mumbai cafe in 2013, to invoke his right with respect to these incidents.
Justice Rekha Palli issued notice and asked the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Google, Press Council of India and Electronic Media Monitoring Centre to respond to the petition.
The court asked the authorities to file their replies within four weeks and listed the matter for further hearing in December.
Ashutosh Kaushik, who had won MTV Hero Honda Roadies 5.0 in 2007 and the second season of Bigg Boss in 2008, sought direction to the Centre to take urgent steps to safeguard his reputation and dignity by removing his traces from various online platforms, as the same is effecting his life and personal liberty.
The plea states that the “Right to be Forgotten” accrues from the claim of an individual to have certain data deleted so that third persons can no longer trace it; it enables a person to silence the past events of his life that are no longer occurring.
“Thus, the ‘Right to be Forgotten’ entitles individuals to have information, videos or photographs about themselves deleted from certain internet records so that search engines cannot find them,” it said.
“Right to be forgotten” is in sync with the right to privacy, which was hailed by the Supreme court as an integral part of Article 21 (right to life) of the Constitution, the petitioner has said.
Senior advocate Arvind Nigam, representing Google, said the “right to be forgotten” was not yet a law in the country. The Delhi High Court had recently upheld the right of an individual to be forgotten, granting interim relief to an American citizen of Indian origin who was acquitted of criminal charges.
