# Kapil Sibal: judiciary and press have failed democracy 2026-08-16T13:49:22+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet Senior advocate Kapil Sibal said the judiciary and the press have failed democracy. Speaking at the Prem Bhatia Memorial Lecture, he warned that if these two pillars bend to power excesses, the republic will be hollowed out from within. livelaw.in reported that Sibal accused the judiciary of institutional compromise, citing the continued incarceration of Umar Khalid under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the opaqueness of the Supreme Court Collegium as stark examples. Sibal criticised the abandonment of the 'bail is rule, jail exception' principle in cases under UAPA and PMLA, calling pre-trial detention stretching into five years a collapse of the distinction between investigation and punishment. He described the collegium system as a 'total disaster', complicit in targeting independent judges through transfers and delayed appointments. He also noted the Supreme Court's initial decision to blacklist authors of a civics textbook critical of the judiciary, later withdrawn, as a troubling signal of its intolerance to public scrutiny. ## Coverage - livelaw.in This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Tags: Kapil Sibal, PMLA, Supreme Court, Supreme Court collegium, UAPA, Umar Khalid Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/kapil-sibal-judiciary-and-press-have-failed-democracy/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/kapil-sibal-judiciary-and-press-have-failed-democracy/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the report linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/