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3.(i) W.P. (C) No. 26500 of 2020: Criminal proceedings were initiated against the petitioner for an offence punishable under Section 354-D Indian Penal Code in C.C.No.344/2015 on the file of the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, Chavakkad.

Subsequently, in the Crl.M.C No.5477/2016 filed before this Court, the de facto complainant filed an affidavit stating that she does not wish to pursue the matter and consented to quash the entire proceedings. By judgment dated 7/9/2016, Crl.M.C No.5477/2016 was allowed and the proceedings in C.C.No.344/2015 were quashed. This judgment has been published by Indian Kanoon and indexed by Google.

The petitioner submits that the right to be forgotten being recognized as a part of the right W.P.(C).Nos.26500/2020 & con.cases to privacy and the judgment being of no public importance, there is no justification for it being in the public domain.

3.(ii). W.P. (C) No. 21917 of 2020: Petitioner, a Dentist by profession, was accused in Crime No. 1111 of 2013 of Kollam East Police Station, but was subsequently acquitted of all the charges in the year 2019. A bail order dated 9/5/2014 in Bail Application No. 2662 of 2014 in the above proceedings was published by the website Indian Kanoon, and the same appears on a search on Google. The petitioner also submits that the order on Indian Kanoon incorrectly states the crime number.

3.(iii). W.P (C) 8174 of 2020: The first petitioner (P1) is the mother and the second petitioner (P2) is her daughter, who is an MBBS student. The petitioners submit that in the year 2014, when P2 was wrongfully detained and confined, P1 filed a habeas corpus petition. Subsequently, P2 was released and the writ petition [W.P. (Crl) 266/2014] was closed. The grievance of the petitioners is that judgment in the above writ petition is published by Indian Kanoon on its website, which appears on the search engine, Google, putting the identity of P2 in the public domain and causing substantial prejudice to her.

57. Similarly, it is the case of the writ petitioner in 2604/2021 that the writ petitioner had approached this Court on an earlier occasion in a dispute related to custody. So also is the claim of the writ petitioner in 12699 of 2021 arising from a family dispute.

C. Publishing Judgments By Indian Kanoon And In Other Online Law Journals:

58. The Case Information System software is a giant move under the initiative of the e-committee to make the Indian Judiciary more transparent and W.P.(C).Nos.26500/2020 & con.cases more litigant friendly. The CIS versions are available for District Judiciary and High Courts exclusively. This Case Information System software for the District Judiciary is created under the guidance of the e-committee, Supreme Court of India through the software team at the National Informatics Center (NIC), Pune. The whole idea of CIS, in a nutshell, is that the litigant should be able to view the daily status of his case, the orders of the case, hearing dates of his case, the progress of the case on any particular date etc. online from any part of the world. [Source e- committee Of Supreme Court Of India Website Viewed On 14/12/22] The Judgments are gold mines of data. In a few of the cases, the challenge is in regard to permitting the use of Court Information Systems by technology innovators in the legal domain like Indian Kanoon. On typing a subject or name of the parties, one can easily search and find out the cases they are looking for on the Indian Kanoon W.P.(C).Nos.26500/2020 & con.cases website. Indian Kanoon obtains judgments from the Case Information System of Courts which are accessible and free of cost. The Courts shall have no copyright claim over judgments as the same forms part of public records. Under the Copyright Act 1957, reproduction for judicial reporting, or reproduction or publication of judgments are not infringements of copyright. Indian Kanoon provides access to different statutes and case laws of various Courts and the Supreme Court of India, free of charge. The reliefs sought against Indian Kanoon are to block the personal data of the petitioners and also to remove and erase the disclosure of the identity of some of the petitioners herein. Though there was resistance on the side of Indian Kanoon in regard to the maintainability of the writ petition seeking prayers against them, we are not considering the above at this juncture for the simple reason that substantial relief is sought against the W.P.(C).Nos.26500/2020 & con.cases publication of the judgment by the High Court on the websites and the portal, and allowing Indiankaoon and other publishers to obtain data from Case Information System. Advocate Santhosh Mathew, learned counsel appearing for Indian Kanoon further submitted that the law does not prohibit the publication of public records and Indian Kanoon never published judgments with the personal details of the parties in cases where the anonymity of parties is protected. He also tried to distinguish between the right to be forgotten with the right of erasure. The judgments forming part of the Court records are public documents as referable under Section 74 of the Indian Evidence Act. There cannot be any dispute in regard to publishing the contents of the judgment even if such judgments are ordered to be masked in regard to the details of the parties to protect their identity. We have already overruled the right to claim privacy in the public sphere in an Open W.P.(C).Nos.26500/2020 & con.cases Court system. The Courtroom is open to all. The Court cannot gloss over the protection available to publishers of judgments under Article 19(1)(a) of our Constitution. Reporting and publishing judgments are part of freedom of speech and expression and that cannot be taken away lightly without the aid of law.