Hearing Scheduled for Ashutosh Kaushik’s ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Plea: Report

Ashutosh Kaushik won the reality shows 'Roadies 5.0' and 'Bigg Boss 2' and was booked for drunken driving in 2009.

Bigg Boss 2 winner Ashutosh Kaushik.

(Photo Courtesy: Instagram)

Actor Ashutosh Kaushik had filed a petition in the Delhi high court in 2021 to grant him the ‘right to be forgotten’. The hearing is scheduled for Thursday (17 February). In his plea, the actor had stated that his life is still being adversely affected by a mistake he “erroneously committed more than a decade ago.”

Ashutosh Kaushik won the reality show Roadies 5.0 in 2007 and Bigg Boss 2 in 2008. He was then arrested for alleged drunk driving in 2009 and the plea is related to visuals of the incident. He had to pay a fine and his driving license was suspended for a year.

The ‘right to be forgotten’ is recognised in the European Union but is not covered by Indian law. According to experts, the ‘right to be forgotten’ entails that a person’s publicly available information must be erased from the web, a BBC report stated.

Kaushik told BBC, “I was 27 then. I got everything I wanted so early in life. I'd lost my father and there was no-one to guide me. I was inexperienced and made a mistake and I was punished for it. But I'm 42 now, and I feel I'm still paying the price.”

Kaushik added that people still judge him because of the incident and he has been rejected for marriage and jobs due to it, “Every time I move home, my new neighbours look at me strangely.”

Kaushik married Arpita in 2020 and the latter revealed that her family has been against the marriage from the beginning seemingly because of the videos of Kaushik they saw online.

Arpita asked, "My relatives were very concerned about his past. My brother refused to accept our marriage and still doesn't talk to me. But I feel that everyone makes mistakes in life, so why should my husband be penalised for a lifetime?"

‘Some Judgments Can Be Considered Precedents’: Ashutosh Kaushik’s Lawyer

BBC reported that Kaushik had approached several media channels and even wrote to Google and India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to remove articles, photos, and videos pertaining to the incident. However, several news articles haven’t been removed and he got no response from Google or the ministry.

In his petition, Kaushik asked the Indian government to direct the Press Council of India and Google to “remove the content from various online platforms”.

Kaushik’s lawyer Akshat Bajpai said that there is legal precedent relating to the ‘right to be forgotten’. High courts in Orissa and Karnataka had held that the right is crucial to the ‘right to privacy’. The Supreme Court had declared the right to privacy a ‘fundamental right’ in 2018.

Bajpai said, “A person's right to be forgotten can clash with a person's right to know. But I hope the court will find a middle ground - in heinous offences such as rape or murder, society has the right to know; but if the offence is not grave, perhaps the courts could allow the right to be forgotten."

Would the ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Work in India?

A spokesperson from Google told BBC that the search engine only reflects what is readily available on the internet, “So if people want content removed from the web, we ask that they start by contacting the independent sites hosting the content.”

Prasanto K Roy, a technology expert, told the publication that the ‘right to be forgotten’ is a tough battle for Indian citizens. He recalled speaking to Google for a woman “who was repeatedly slandered and linked to 'husbands' she didn't have” but to no avail.

He added that Google can block URLs or search phrases under the ‘right to be forgotten’ but in India, there is the chance that such demands may increase “given how fragile and sensitive Indian social media is”.

(With inputs from BBC)