The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Union government to expedite the release and deportation of all Pakistani and other nationals lodged in various prisons in the country. A Bench of Justices R.M. Lodha and H.L. Gokhale told Additional Solicitor-General Parag Tripathi that there was no justification for keeping them in prisons. The Bench passed the order on a writ petition filed by Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party chief Bhim Singh,...

The first judgment in a 2002 riots case and the SIT report on the Ishrat Jahan killing go against the Gujarat government. THE verdict in a crucial and long-running case involving a massacre and the investigation report in another case, of alleged encounter killings, both delivered in November, give hope to victims of the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat that they will get justice, even if delayed. In the first case, the special...

-Daily Maverick Laws governing citizens’ to know what is happening in their governments have become commonplace over the past decade. But it’s not just South Africans who dread the lack of transparency: a new report from the Associated Press suggests that more than half the countries with “Right to Know” laws do not actually follow them.  In January AP set about testing the efficacy of freedom of information laws in 105 countries...

-The Telegraph   The Supreme Court today directed the government to provide information about all mercy petitions pending before the President and governors. An apex court bench passed the ruling while hearing the plea of Punjab militant Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar. Bhullar wants his death sentence to be commuted to life term because of inordinate delay in deciding on his mercy plea. The bench, headed by Justice G.S. Singhvi, observed that it could not confine...

-The Hindu   In a historic first, a special court in Gujarat has convicted and awarded life sentences to as many as 31 mostly high caste, landed Patels for burning alive 33 Muslims — the majority of them women and children — of Sardarpura village in Mehsana district. The village was among numerous Muslim habitations targeted across the State by irate Hindu mobs as part of a pogrom ruthlessly executed in the...