-The Hindu The cavalier approach of the police, especially in Delhi, to terror investigations has long hampered the country’s fight against terrorism. In many cases, the real culprits remain at large even as responsibility is wrongly fixed on persons who are either innocent or only peripherally connected to a particular incident. The terrible consequences of this unprofessionalism were revealed on Thursday when the Delhi High Court ordered the acquittal of two...

-The Hindu By not informing Ajmal Kasab of his right to seek a judicial review of the rejection of his mercy petition, the UPA government has committed a serious wrong The hurried and secretive hanging of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab is both an administrative wrong and a constitutional impropriety. The Manmohan Singh government and the UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, owe it to the nation and the whole world to explain why their...

-The Times of India The Supreme Court on Thursday said it had directed appointment of retired judges as heads of information commissions at the Centre and state level to ensure their independence as many were headed by persons who "have been in the good books of government". "You will find the chief information commissioners, both at the Centre and state level, are persons who have been in the good books of the...

-The Telegraph The Supreme Court today dared the Centre to enact a law to prohibit retired judges or bureaucrats from taking up post-retirement positions in commissions or other government undertakings. A bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar threw down the gauntlet when additional solicitor-general A.S. Chandiok suggested “there should be no post-retirement employment”. The law officer also asked the court to review its September 12 judgment that only sitting or retired...

-The Hindu By not publicly disclosing the reasons for rejecting Ajmal Kasab’s mercy petition, Pranab Mukherjee missed an excellent opportunity to contribute to the rule of law President Pranab Mukherjee’s decision to reject the mercy petition submitted by the lone convict in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, is an instance of how public perceptions about a convict’s guilt can camouflage the government’s duty to explain the decision. The...