Protection may work in diverse ways. Is it fair to a person who has been acquitted of a crime to continue to have his name on the record of a lower court as an accused forever? Should his reputation not be protected? But is it fair to the people if they do not have access to the development of a case through its various stages if the conclusion is an acquittal? Should their knowledge not be protected too? The first question arises from the right to be forgotten or the right to erasure. This follows upon the right to privacy which is a fundamental right according to the 2017 Supreme Court ruling, although the right to be forgotten has not been mentioned separately so far. Earlier, the right to erasure was raised in relation to personal data being stored on digital platforms either without the person’s knowledge or consent, or after the purpose for which the details were uploaded has been fulfilled and they are no longer needed. But that issue was linked to principles of data protection more than the other kinds.
The right to be ‘forgotten’ after being acquitted touches on certain needs. Conviction by a high court, for example, is a serious matter even if it is followed by an acquittal by the Supreme Court. The earlier conviction may linger in people’s minds in social and professional situations; people may not know of the acquittal or they may be suspicious since a high court had found the individual guilty. The issue is thornier now, since neither accusations nor evidence-gathering are always ethical or up to the mark, and when law-enforcement agencies are often being found to have committed procedural lapses. But the public has the right to be informed of cases, their outcomes and the reasoning behind these. This is a right by itself apart from the trust for courts that must be engendered among the people through transparency, accessibility and exemplary process. Besides, cases form precedents; erasing stages of the case will diminish their value. Weighing both sides of the question, it might be asked if fairness should be qualitative or quantitative — good for one person or good of the greatest number? A case before the Supreme Court has awakened these questions; the court will reportedly rule on this in the near future.