FIR Removal

Why is google/yahoo showing court judgments from Maha FIR?

Maha FIR has been useful for people seeking information on Indian Law. Over time Maha FIR’s reputation on general search engines like google and yahoo has improved and as a result, pages from Maha FIR have started surfacing in the top few of search results.

Court Cases / FIR Are Public Records

Court judgments are public records. If a court of India hears a case, no one can argue that the opinion should not be published and viewable by all, unless the court itself expressly says it cannot be published or a law says it cannot be.

The decisions of the Supreme Court are the law of the land, and all citizens can read their decisions. Courts today publish their judgments and orders on the Internet, not just the Supreme Court. If you search for a current court case from judis.nic.in or a high court website or the district court websites, you will find details of that case directly from the courts.

Who gave permission to Maha FIR to publish court cases?

As mentioned above, FIR is public records and we do not need anyone’s permission to publish court cases. Section 52(1)(q)(iv) of the Copyright Act states that the publication of court judgments does not constitute an infringement of Copyright.

FIR is the public record and also the court record

FIR on registration is deposited with the concerned magistrate court within 24 hours of registration.

The FIR is a public document, within the meaning of Section 74 of the Indian Evidence Act, under Section 76 of the Indian Evidence Act.

In Mohammed Israth vs T.S.Haneefa on 14 June, 2017

14(b) As per the law aforesaid declared by the Supreme Court, the contents of FIR, irrespective of whether published in a newspaper as a news event or not, are in public domain. Once the Police itself, as per law declared by the Supreme Court is required to publish the FIR, I fail to see how the defendants no.1 to 6 as editor/publisher of the newspaper or the defendant no.7 as complainant, can be proceeded against in an action for defamation for publishing the contents thereof.

FIR on registration is uploaded on the official website of the Government of Maharashtra

But my privacy is violated by the publication of the court judgment / FIR

In R. Rajagopal vs State Of T.N on 7 October, 1994 where the Supreme Court defined the scope of the Right to Privacy, it held that publication of court records will not violate the right to privacy. It held:

The rule aforesaid is subject to the exception, that any publication concerning the aforesaid aspects becomes unobjectionable if such publication is based upon public records including court records. This is for the reason that once a matter becomes a matter of public record, the right to privacy no longer subsists and it becomes a legitimate subject for comment by press and media among others. We are, however, of the opinion that in the interests of decency [Article 19(2) an exception must be carved out to this rule, viz., a female who is the victim of a sexual assault, kidnap, abduction or a like offence should not further be subjected to the indignity of her name and the incident being publicised in press/media

But the recent Supreme Court judgment on Puttaswamy vs Union of India (2017) gives me the right to privacy?

Puttaswamy vs Union of India (2017) recognizes the right to privacy as an intrinsic part of the right to life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. It expressly held that the recognition of the right to be forgotten would require careful balancing with other legitimate State interests, including the right to freedom of information, through a legislative enactment governing data protection. In fact, it expressly referred and endorsed R. Rajagopal (supra) in relation to public records. So R. Rajgopal (supra) is the binding law till it is over ruled by the Supreme Court.

What about the recent orders in Jorawar Singh Mundy case etc?

There are some interim orders ordering us for for name removal and we have complied with them. However, there are only two final orders in the right to be forgotten cases before the high courts. In Dharamraj Bhanushankar Dave v. State of Gujarat, the Hon’ble High Court held that the petitioner was unable to provide any violation of the law by way of the publication of the court judgment that can be addressed under Article 226. It also held that publishing of any judgment or proceeding on a website would not come under the realm of ‘reportable’ as understood in context of judgments reported in a law reporter.

Subsequently, the Hon’ble Madras High Court in Karthick Theodre v. Registrar General, after much deliberation, and considering various judgments of English Courts and the Supreme Court of India, including K.S. Puttaswamy (supra) held that the right to be forgotten could not exist in the context of judgments delivered by courts. N. Anand Venkatesh, J. held:

20. It can, therefore, be taken as an established position of law that public access to judgments of Courts is an integral precept of the concept of open justice, promoting the rule of law.

25. It would, therefore, follow that the “right to be forgotten” cannot exist in the sphere of administration of justice particularly in the context of judgments delivered by Courts.

34. The High Court is a Court of Record under Article 215 of the Constitution. As a superior Court of Record, it is entitled to preserve the original record in perpetuity. Thus, the sanctity of an original record cannot be altered or otherwise dealt with except in a manner prescribed by law. No judgment of any Court has been cited to show that the prerogative power of this Court under Article 226 extends to direct alteration of its own records…

Can you remove or modify my court case / FIR?

We will not remove or modify any public documents without an order of the court competent to do so. Remember, there are many, many copies of these court decisions in existence, and Maha FIR has just one of those many copies.

In a limited set of cases, we will remove the name, address and any other identity of the victim from the court judgments for cases registered under Section 376 IPC, Section 376A-D, Section 354 IPC or the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. You can send an email to support@mahafir.com with the link/URL of the case on Maha FIR.

In accordance with the provisions of Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, we will remove any identity disclosure of a juvenile in conflict of law inadvertently done in a court order unless such removal is explicitly prohibited by a Juvenile Board or a Committee, specially constituted for the purpose that allows for such a disclosure to be made.

Can you at least block Google/Yahoo from accessing my judgment / FIR?

Yes but only for cases of divorce, maintenance, child adoption, and child custody. The cases from the Supreme Court will not be blocked. Send an email to support@mahafir.com with the link/URL of the case on Maha FIR. The requests are examined in a batch once 2-3 weeks and will take time. Also, note that only “/doc/” and “/docfragment/” will be blocked from the search engines. If Google/Yahoo still show the “/search/” link that may contain your case, nothing can be done as search queries to the website are not specific to your case.

If your request is accepted for blocking, then we will add “/doc/” and “/docfragment/” to the robots.txt and also remove those URLs from Google index. It will take a few days for Google to remove these URLs. If Google still shows you any links that may take your user to your case page, then we can not do anything.