The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to entertain, at this stage, a plea seeking disclosure of the source code of its Case Management System (CMS) software, observing that if the petitioner had constructive suggestions on improving the system, he ought to place them before the Registry instead of invoking the Court’s writ jurisdiction.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana was hearing a PIL filed by Sunil Ahya, who contended that the Supreme Court’s Case Management System, stated to be based on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), ought to make its source code available for public scrutiny. The petitioner argued that the Registry’s policy of not sharing the source code was inconsistent with the Government of India’s open-source software policy.

The Bench, however, pointed out that the Court’s case management system deals with sensitive judicial information and, therefore, raises issues of privacy and cybersecurity. Justice Joymalya Bagchi observed:

When the petitioner insisted that security does not depend upon concealment of the source code and sought a detailed response from the Registry, the Court indicated that the matter was not adversarial and that practical suggestions would be more useful than litigation. The CJI remarked:

The petitioner submitted that if the source code was not made available, the software should not be described as open source. The Court, however, was not inclined to issue directions on the petition and reiterated that any constructive proposals could be submitted directly to the Registry for consideration.