Name-based searches on legal databases in ‘public interest’: Delhi High Court

On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court emphasized that searching for court judgments by a person's name is crucial and "not even remotely a substitute" for alternative search methods on legal databases. A division bench of Justices C Hari Shankar and Vinod Kumar was handling appeals from Indian Kanoon, a free legal database, which was challenging a single judge's ruling that required the website to limit name-based searches.

The single judge's decision in May acknowledged the "right to be forgotten" for individuals previously accused in criminal cases. Indian Kanoon had suffered by having to remove over 80 judgments due to this ruling. The legal database argued that the "overbroad and impractical direction" for censoring specific names from search results should be addressed at the source - court registries, which are responsible for making court records public on their respective websites.

During the hearing, senior advocate Akhil Sibal, representing an accused opposing Indian Kanoon's appeal, argued that restricting name-based searches would make it impossible for practitioners to access judgments without knowing the specific writ petition number and date. However, Justice C Hari Shankar disagreed, stating that while searching by legal proposition might be possible, it is not a feasible alternative to name-based searches.

Justice Shankar emphasized that if this principle were applied universally across legal software, practitioners would be unable to access any judgments. He also argued that the public interest is in favor of access to these judgments, as it is impractical for someone to know the writ petition number and date to access a judgment. The court will revisit the matter on September 2.