‘Right to be forgotten for juveniles is absolute’: Rajasthan HC orders JJB to erase 2014 conviction record

Jaipur: The Rajasthan High Court has ruled that the ‘right to be forgotten’ is an absolute right for every juvenile under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015. Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand delivered the order on 15 April 2026, while quashing a 2019 decision that had refused to erase a man’s juvenile conviction record.

The petitioner, belonging to Sawai Madhopur district, was a minor when an incident took place on 5 November 2008. He was tried before the Juvenile Justice Board, Sawai Madhopur, for offences under Sections 341, 323, 325 and 336 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. These sections cover wrongful restraint, voluntarily causing hurt, causing grievous hurt, and acts endangering life.

On 13 October 2014, the Board found him guilty on his own confession. Instead of convicting him, it released him on probation for one year under Section 15(e) of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000, a provision that lets a juvenile be set free on a good-conduct bond. The Board expressly recorded that its order would not affect his future.

Bairwa later went to work in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government, however, relied on the 2014 order to remove him from service and refuse re-employment. Passport authorities in India also began treating him as ineligible, and the police listed him as a convicted person. In 2019, he asked the Board to review its 2014 judgment and delete the line that called him guilty. The Principal Magistrate of the Board rejected that application on 6 May 2019. He then moved the High Court to quash the rejection.

Counsel for the petitioner, Shamsuddin Ansari, submitted that the 2014 order had destroyed his client’s livelihood abroad. He argued that even though the Board had not imposed a sentence, the fact that the order called Bairwa “found guilty” was enough for Saudi Arabia to sack him. Unless that line was deleted from the record, he would never be re-employed or able to support his family.

Public Prosecutor Jitendra Singh Rathore opposed the petition. He argued that the 2014 order itself had said the conviction would not affect the petitioner’s future. On that basis, he submitted, no further intervention by the High Court was needed.

Justice Dhand walked through the legal framework that is meant to shield juveniles from being branded offenders for life. Section 3(xiv) of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 lays down the “principle of fresh start”. It says all past records of a child under the juvenile justice system should be erased, except in special circumstances. Section 24 of the same Act says a child dealt with under the Act shall not suffer any disqualification attached to a conviction. It also directs the Board to order the police or the Children’s Court to destroy the records after the appeal period expires.

The Court held that the offences Bairwa had faced were not “heinous offences” under Section 2(33) of the Act. That label is reserved for offences carrying a maximum punishment of seven years or more. None of the sections he was charged under crossed that threshold. They therefore fell within the category of “serious offences” under Section 2(54), where record destruction is mandatory once the appeal window closes.

On the combined effect of these provisions, Justice Dhand gave the judgment’s central holding. He observed: “the provisions contained under Sec. 24 of the Act of 2015 and Rule 14 of the Rules of 2016 provides that the right to be forgotten for a juvenile is an absolute right for safeguarding their future prospects.” In plain terms, once a juvenile has been dealt with under the Act, the State cannot allow his conviction record to follow him around and block his employment.

The Court also drew on the Delhi High Court’s order in Jorawer Singh Mundy vs Union of India (WP(C) 3981/2021, decided 12 April 2021). In that case, the “right to be forgotten” was read into the right to privacy. Justice Dhand said he did not wish to enter the wider debate on the right to be forgotten as a general principle. But where a juvenile was concerned, he held, Section 24 of the 2015 Act already made that right absolute.

The Court found that no appeal had ever been filed against the 2014 order, and it had long attained finality. Bairwa had therefore been entitled to assume his record was already gone. The fact that Saudi Arabia had sacked him on the strength of that record deeply troubled the Court. It observed that “the entire purpose of enacting the Act of 2000 and 2015 has been frustrated.”

The High Court allowed the petition and quashed the Juvenile Justice Board’s order dated 6 May 2019 that had refused to review the 2014 judgment. It directed the Board and the concerned police station to erase Bairwa’s conviction record from their files. It further ordered that whenever he applies for a character certificate, the document must not reflect that he is a convicted person.