SPECIAL COLLECTION OF THE CASE LAW ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION to do so in a timely manner. In cases where the illegality of the disputed content is not so clear, a judge should adjudicate the controversy. This criteria was ratified by the Supreme Court in the Denegri case, when adjudicating a “right to be forgotten” petition by a public figure it refused to grant relief, considering that the right has not been created by the legislator and that freedom of expression standards prevent a public figure who is embarrassed by old footage of her participating in a scandalous talk show to have that footage de-indexed from search engines and video hosting services 7. In India several cases have considered “right to In India several cases have be forgotten” claims, in some cases involving content considered “right to be produced willingly but which consent for its distribution was later retrieved and another case involving forgotten” claims, in some a case of a blatant violation of privacy rights of a cases involving content victim of sexual violence. In Rout v. State of Odisha, produced willingly but which the High Court of Orissa reaffirmed the need for the legislative recognition of the “right to be forgotten” consent for its distribution was while refusing to grant bail to a petitioner in a rape later retrieved and another case. The accused was charged with raping a woman case involving a case of a and uploading a video of the incident on Facebook to harass the victim. He then applied for bail in the High blatant violation of privacy Court, which refused to grant it due to the heinousrights of a victim of sexual ness of the crime. The tribunal also commented that violence. the “right to be forgotten” is an integral part of the right to privacy and that there must be a mechanism through which a victim can protect her privacy by having the content deleted from servers of intermediaries. The Court held that in cases where a victim’s right to privacy has been gravely violated, the victim or the prosecution may approach a Court to seek appropriate orders and have the infringing content removed from public platforms—irrespective of the ongoing criminal process. In X v. YouTube, the High Court of Delhi upheld an actress’ right to privacy under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. Therefore, the Court directed Internet intermediaries as well as websites to take down the explicit videos, which had been uploaded on to multiple video-sharing platforms without her consent. The actress sued the defendants after they failed to remove multiple explicit clips of her, which were originally filmed for the purposes of a potential lead role in a web series. While the producer of the videos took down his footage soon after the actor complained, the defendants did not, which the actor argued was in breach of her “right to be forgotten” and, more broadly, her right to privacy. While the actor may have consented to the video shooting, the Court found her consent to have since been expressly withdrawn, as the producer of the series had also removed the videos upon her request. Although the Court was conscious that there is no statutory “right to be 7 The case has not yet been included in the database. 13