FOSS Induction - Allahabad High Court

This is the third post of the series 'FOSS INNOVATION IN INDIAN COURTS: Inspired by the Allahabad High Court'. It talks about how FOSS was introduced in the Allahabad High Court.

FOSS INNOVATION IN COURTS: Inspired by the Allahabad High Court

Introduction|| Computerisation of Indian Courts|| FOSS Introduction - Allahabad High Court|| 

I purchased my first desktop in 1990. There was six months waiting for the same. It was on DOS. I purchased four more till I was elevated as an Allahabad High Court judge on 5^th February 1999 and also upgraded them from time to time. 

During the aforesaid period, I also experimented with OS2 Warp and Linux but stuck to Windows-95 as technical help for OS2 Warp and Linux were hardly available. 

Soon, after becoming a judge, I was nominated to the Computer Committee of the Allahabad High Court and later became Chairman of the same. I was associated with the computer committee for about a decade. 

When I became a part of Computer Committee, I realised that there were more desktops than we had licences for MS Office. There were budgetary constraints, and it was justified on the reasoning that at any given time less MS Office operated than the number of licences that the High Court had for the same. This was wrong: one licensed software can be uploaded only on one computer and not more than one. My first effort was to correct this mistake.

Before I joined the computer committee, desktops were purchased in the FY 1998-99. There were some defects in the desktops and full payment was not made. The supplier was trying to settle the matter but was not successful. As a matter of settlement, he offered to supply some more desktops. During negotiation, he offered to provide one and half times more desktops, if Linux based computers were accepted. 

This offer was much better, the High Court was getting more computers, and the main purpose was word processing that Linux desktops could do well. The offer was accepted and Linux based desktops with OpenOffice.Org suite for word processing were taken. 

The shift to FOSS happened around the turn of the century. We were the first court in India to use it. But our shift was not easy: there were problems and lot of opposition. 

The Private Secretaries/ Personal Assistants were used to Window machines and MS Office suite. They took every opportunity to downgrade Linux based desktops, but the High Court computer section did an excellent job. It sorted out all the problems. Now, no one could accuse the High Court of doing anything illegal.

Slowly, but surely, everyone realised the importance of FOSS. It was economical, stable, no viruses and computer games were not available – a distraction from work as well as for kids. 

Soon, the High Court employees started requesting us on a personal level to install Linux in their personal computers at home: it saved them from using pirated version, and they also wanted to wane away their children from wasting their time over computer games. Everyone started liking FOSS. The High Court found it so useful that it adopted FOSS as a policy. It was the first court to do so.

In the next post, we will talk how FOSS made further inroads in the Allahabad High. 

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