How could a pure Hindu Icon, a dhwaja at a temple, be an icon of universality and of the binding nature of tradition, as the CJI suggested it was?

The mandate of law requires that a magistrate not act as an extension of the executive. It is for this reason that she or he has not only the power to refuse judicial remand, but also the responsibility to justify it.

The UAPA over the years has degenerated into a lethal weapon to quell dissent, and has been used by successive governments to legitimise sinister motives.

The Code of Criminal Procedure specifies the manner in which an arrest is to be effected and deviations from the code would make the arrest illegal and the arresting police officials liable for punishment.

The Contempt of Courts Act allows Prashant Bhushan to establish the truthfulness of his tweets as well as the public interest and bona fides involved and the bench was wrong to brush this aside.

By failing to uphold the sanctity of the high court's order in a matter where the NIA's conduct appears surreptitious and mala faide, the Supreme Court has undermined the majesty of the law.

Racist and communal poison, backed by a section of the media and intelligentsia, has long been a staple of politics.

I express my anguish knowing full well that I am a nobody and do not count in the scheme of the State.

When courts abdicate moral authority and sacrifice judicial acumen, other bodies arrogate to themselves the authority to deliver justice on the terms which they justify as the call of society.

Apart from violating procedures laid down by the Supreme Court, the bonds that magistrates are asking detenues to sign are not sustainable, legally or morally.

The law forbids any arrest of a juvenile under the preventive detention provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code. Yet the police has listed dozens of such arrests in its report to the Supreme Court.

Why didn't the courts do justice? Was it lethargy, incompetence, pressure of the prevailing political climate or plain smugness?

No mature society should permit an individual to impersonate or appropriate an institution, writes a former Patna high court judge.