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In the wake of the horrific terrorist attacks on Mumbai in November 2008, there is growing pressure for the enactment of a new anti-terrorism law. In 2004, the Congress Government repealed the Prevention of Terrorism Act ("POTA"), due to widespread criticism that the act's draconian preventive provisions had been badly manipulated and abused by state and local elites against the lower classes or religious minorities.This paper examines the failures of the POTA regime in order to understand how future anti-terrorism regimes can be made more effective and less subject to abuse. I start by analyzing the role of the Indian judiciary in the implementation of past anti-terror laws such as the National Security Act (the A.K. Roy case (1982), the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (the Kartar Singh case (1994), and POTA (2003). In each case, the Court has upheld deeply flawed laws on the grounds that anti-terror legislation lies within the realm of "extraordinary law." In this paper, I revisit these decisions and argue that the Court in the future should adopt a more assertive and proactive role in scrutinizing future anti-terror legislation, in order to ensure that future regimes are effective and not abused by state elites. Indian leaders must learn from the mistakes of POTA in designing a new law that centralizes power and control over anti-terrorism policy, and provides for strong judicial review and oversight of its implementation. I conclude by contrasting Indian case law with U.S. Supreme Court and federal court decisions in this area. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]