Kapil Sibal: judiciary and press have failed democracy

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noted the Supreme Court's initial decision to blacklist authors of a civics textbook critical of the judiciary, later withdrawn, as a troubling signal of its intolerance to public scrutiny.