Letters to the Editor: April 20

The Supreme Court ruling on CBI judge B.H. Loya’s death is a victory for the BJP and its president Amit Shah (”SC throws out pleas for probe, rules Judge Loya died of natural causes”, April 19, online edition). The ruling will also discourage frivolous PILs from now on.

Thiruvananthapuram

This ruling does not explain why Judge Loya’s family had said he had been offered a bribe of ₹100 crore, why there were unexplained injuries on his body, and why all the data were erased from his phone when the instrument was returned to his family three days after his death, according to reports. Given the unexpected acquittal of all the accused in the Mecca Masjid case, which casts aspersions on the neutrality of the justice delivery system, the dismissal of pleas by the court in the Loya case could be seen by some as reluctance to bring out the truth.

Madurai

Even though this has brought closure to the issue, the controversy is not likely to die down any time soon, especially as this was the case that caused four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court to hold an unprecedented press conference on this and other issues. e must accept the highest court’s verdict, but one still wonders why the Maharashtra government opposed pleas seeking an independent investigation into Judge Loya’s death if the death was only natural, as claimed.

Bengaluru

The President’s belated condemnation of the Kathua rape as “barbaric” speaks volumes about the gravity of the offence (“Kathua incident barbaric: Kovind”, April 19). As President, Ram Nath Kovind ought to have passed strictures on the Central and State governments which allow such heinous acts to go on all the time despite huge amounts being spent on law-enforcement agencies. By only speaking of this as a societal problem, the President has failed to take this opportunity to point out how law and order needs to be improved across States.

Thanjavur

The editorial “A credibility crisis” (April 19), which states that the National Investigation Agency did a poor job of handling the case, reminds me of one of India’s most eminent judges, Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer. Justice Iyer was the vacation judge in the Supreme Court when he got a call from the then Union Law Minister, H.R. Gokhale, who was also a close friend. The Minister wanted to visit Justice Iyer regarding the verdict in the Indira Gandhi case. Justice Iyer refused to meet him and advised him to file an appeal and seek an early hearing. At a time when one is losing faith in the judiciary, with the NIA judge resigning after his judgment, one wishes we had more people like Justice Krishna Iyer around.

Coimbatore

It is too early to call the discoveries of plastic-eating enzymes as big victories. One can’t help but feel cynical about all this, given how plastic pollution remains the same despite earlier discoveries of this nature (“Researchers engineer plastic-eating enzyme”, April 17). For instance, in 2014, there was a report that three strains of bacteria that can degrade plastic materials such as polythene had been discovered on the coast of Gujarat. In 2016, a group of Japanese scientists said that bacteria called Ideonella sakaiensis could eat plastic bottles. These discoveries were heartening, but they haven’t been put to use yet and it may be long before they are put to use. The solution is not to keep waiting for discoveries which will give us an excuse to keep using plastic, but to avoid using plastic and instead adopt biodegradable alternatives. But being consumerist, we are unable to do so.

Hyderabad

The Central government had promised us that it would abolish black money (“Cash is still king”, April 19). That didn’t happen and we had to suffer the after-effects of demonetisation. Then the Goods and Services Tax was introduced, but its implementation was messy. This year we’ve been seeing petrol and diesel prices skyrocket. We are told that Digital India is the solution to all problems but shops still want cash and Digital India will anyway take a long time to reach rural areas. Now there is a cash crunch too. It looks like the middle class and the poor are destined to suffer.

New Delhi