Former Congress leader, Kapil Sibal, has courted controversy over his doublespeak on the functioning of the Supreme Court of India.
In an interview with ‘journalist’ Swati Chaturvedi for Gulf News, the veteran advocate and former Law Minister chided current Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju for criticising the collegium system (which is employed for the appointment of new Judges in the apex court).
Sibal alleged, “As far as the law minister’s (Kiren Rijiju’s) attacks (on Supreme Court) are concerned, they are driven by the desire of the government to have the final say in the appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.”
“That is simply unacceptable and will be disastrous since future judges will look to the executive for their elevation. The end result will be a committed judiciary; committed to the executive,” Sibal further added.
While Kapil Sibal mouthed platitudes about the independence of the judiciary and the need to preserve constitutional values during the interview, he has been at the forefront of casting aspersions on the integrity of the apex court in the past.
When Kapil Sibal targeted the Supreme Court
While speaking at an event called “People’s Tribunal on the Judicial rollback of Civil liberties” in August this year, the veteran leader made controversial remarks about the judiciary and the processes being followed by the Supreme Court of India.
During his speech, Kapil Sibal said, “I do not want to talk like this about a Court where I have practised for 50 years but the time has come. If we don’t speak it, who will? The reality is such that any sensitive matter which we know has a problem is placed before certain judges and we know the outcome.”
Sibal also went on to question the independence of the judiciary and raised questions about the procedure through which different benches are constituted for different cases. Sibal even went on to remark that those hoping to get relief from Supreme Court are highly mistaken.
No Hope Left In Supreme Court : Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal https://t.co/MMK4yYa5GZ
— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) August 7, 2022
“The court where the judges are made through a process of compromise, the court which has no system of who will hear what kind of cases, the court where the CJI decides that this matter will go to this bench, when the case will go, when it will be heard- there is no system- that court can never be independent,” he had claimed.
In another interview with the news agency PTI in July, Sibal said, “When the judiciary turns a blind eye to ex-facie violations of the rule of law one wonders why an institution designed to protect the rule of law allows the rule of law to be infringed with open eyes.”
After casting aspersions on the Supreme Court and its functioning all this while, Kapil Sibal has now decided to come out in defense of the apex court.
