The Supreme Court today refused to entertain a petition seeking citizens' access to study the Free and Open Source Software utilised in the Court's Case Management System.

Flagging security and privacy concerns, the Court said that if the petitioner has a proposal for sharing the source code without affecting the security aspect, he may share the same.

"We are not inclined the consider this petition under Article 32. However, if the petitioner has any valuable suggestion for improvement of internal functioning of the Supreme Court registry or the establishment, such suggestions are always welcome. An endeavor shall be made to incorporate the same suitably", the Court ordered.

A bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana rejected the petition, filed by one Sunil Ahya, while observing that the petitioner may give suggestions, if any, to the Registry.

Briefly put, the petitioner filed the plea seeking a direction to the Supreme Court administration to align the administrative policy relating to the Case Management System of the Supreme Court with the licensing framework and governing principles of the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) stated to be utilized in the said system.

He further prayed for a direction recognizing that citizens of India constitute the end-users of the Case Management System for the purposes of the FOSS, which recognizes the freedom of the end-user to study the software in accordance with the governing principles of FOSS, "such transparency being inherent in the adoption of FOSS and consistent with Articles 14 and 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India".

During today's hearing, the petitioner, appearing in person, contended that the CMS software utilising FOSS should be available to the end-user (citizens) to study and examine. However, the Court's administrative policy on the subject is inconsistent with FOSS principles. "If you have any suggestions for better functioning, you please give your suggestions. We will direct the Registry to consider the suggestions. Don't file writ petition like this," CJI said.

At this point, the petitioner contended that the Registry has informed him about a Court policy as per which the source code of the CMS software cannot be shared. Hearing him, Justice Bagchi responded,

"Think of a free and open source software in respect of transactions as taking place here, which has privacy issues and security issues. So we need to have firewalls for the purpose of access of the open source. That does not make the software proprietary, because we are using open source however subject to cyber security firewalls. That does not change the character...so if you have any proposal that open source can be shared without impairing security, you can give us [suggestions]."

The petitioner persisted, "security is not through concealment of source code. We have adopted open source code, that means we think it is secure." At last, CJI said that the petition being in public interest, if the petitioner has any good suggestions, he may share them and the Court will try to incorporate.

Seeing that the bench was not inclined to entertain the petition, the petitioner contended that the Supreme Court's CMS cannot be stated to be an open source. "It has to be stated to be a closed source software or proprietary software", he said. But the bench was not convinced.

Case Title: SUNIL AHYA v. THE SECRETARY GENERAL, THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA AND ANR., Diary No. 17407-2026