By Venkatesh Nayak* Last week, there was both good news and “not so good” news on the AFSPA front across the country. The good news is, people in Meghalaya can heave a sigh of relief over the lifting of the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) from their State. Meanwhile, the Central Government has claimed that it does not hold files of 47 cases in which it denied sanction to prosecute members of the defence forces for alleged offences and human rights violations said to have been committed in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) while operating under a similar law of 1990 vintage. On new year’s day, this year (2018), the Ministry of Defence informed Parliament that it had received requests from the J&K Government for sanction to prosecute security personnel in 50 cases that occurred between 2001-2016. While the requests were pending in three cases, the Government had denied sanction to prosecute the accused in other cases involving allegations of “murder or killing of