-The Hindu The Supreme Court's ruling on the requirement of previous sanction to prosecute soldiers accused of committing crimes may have clarified matters as far as the legal provisions of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act are concerned but for the families of the five innocent men who were killed in a fake encounter at Pathribal, Jammu and Kashmir, in March 2000, it is still not clear whether or not they...

Supreme Court order on fake encounters in Pathribal, Kamrup   The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Army to decide whether its personnel involved in fake encounter killings in Pathribal in Jammu and Kashmir and Assam should be court-martialled or tried in regular criminal courts. If Army authorities were not keen on court-martial proceedings, the Central Bureau of Investigation could seek sanction from the Centre for prosecution of the erring officers, said a...

A local court on Monday convicted Samajwadi Party state president and MLA Abu Asim Azmi and four others of making inflammatory speeches to incite communal violence during a rally in 2000. Metropolitan magistrate Sanjashree Gharat of the Mazgaon court sentenced Azmi, Waqarunnissa Ansari, Lalbahadur Singh, Ehsanullah Khan and Ali M Shamsi to two years' imprisonment. When the five sought time to appeal in the sessions court, the magistrate allowed suspension of...

-The Times of India Former BJP president Bangaru Laxman has been convicted, 11 years after he was caught on camera allegedly taking bribe in a sting operation. A special CBI court here held Bangaru guilty of accepting Rs 1 lakh bribe in 2001 and convicted him under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The court of special CBI judge Kanwaljeet Arora sent Bangaru into judicial custody soon after convicting him. The former BJP chief...

-IANS The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Left Wednesday demanded an explanation from the government on former Swedish police chief Sten Lindstrom's revelations on the Bofors payoff scandal, including the safe passage to main accused Ottavio Quattrochchi. The BJP said it had always questioned the safe passage to Italian businessman Quattrochchi in the Rs.1,500 crore Bofors gun deal in the 1980s. "The entire government of late Rajiv Gandhi was out to secure...