Published Paper Details:

The right to be forgotten (RTBF) is slowly gaining ground in India's legal landscape, but it remains unclear where it fits within the Constitution. While the Supreme Court recognized privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21, RTBF has not yet been fully embraced or clearly defined. This paper explores how RTBF could be integrated into Indian constitutional law without clashing with other fundamental rights like freedom of expression. It looks at recent court decisions, the new data protection law, and international examples to argue that India needs judicial clarity on this issue--sooner rather than later. The rapid expansion of digital technologies has fundamentally altered the relationship between individual privacy and public access to information in India. Personal data, once obscure or time-bound, now remains permanently accessible through search engines and online archives, often causing lasting reputational, social, and economic harm. In this context, the Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) has emerged as a crucial yet contested facet of the broader right to privacy. While the Supreme Court of India, in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), recognized privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21, it stopped short of explicitly articulating the contours of RTBF. Subsequent judicial decisions and legislative efforts, including provisions under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, reveal an evolving but fragmented approach marked by inconsistencies and uncertainty. This paper argues that India urgently requires a clear constitutional stand on the Right to Be Forgotten to effectively balance individual dignity and autonomy against legitimate public interest, freedom of expression, and the right to information. It examines the doctrinal foundations of RTBF, comparative constitutional practices, and the challenges posed by vague statutory safeguards and ad hoc judicial balancing. The study contends that without constitutional clarity, RTBF risks either being overused to suppress public accountability or under-enforced, leaving individuals vulnerable to perpetual digital punishment.