A deep institutional crisis has erupted within India’s legal and political landscape
Avinash Azad
According to legal portal Live Law, this unprecedented public expression of disillusionment came during a high-stakes press conference. The fiery remarks were delivered in the wake of sweeping state crackdowns and heavy police restrictions on capital-wide protests targeting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over massive allegations of vote theft and the controversial deletion of 130 million voter names through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.
Highlighting his personal exhaustion with judicial inaction, Live Law quotes him stating: “I am tired of keeping on going to the Supreme Court (SC). I am speaking for myself. I don’t think there is any use of going there. I don’t have much hope in the SC.”
The timing of Sibal’s sharp critique coincides directly with the SC agreeing to urgently hear petitions challenging the brute force and sweeping detentions unleashed by the Delhi Police against citizens demanding accountability.
Thousands of demonstrators, students, and political figures faced aggressive preventive detentions and shutdowns across the national capital. Emphasizing the gravity of these democratic fractures and the futility felt by petitioners seeking justice, Live Law further quotes Sibal addressing the broader sentiment of the public: “We go to the Court, but I don’t know if we will get any relief. The people of the country feel that this Government should go. If anybody can save the Constitution in these times, it is the Supreme Court of India. But I am tired. I am tired of keeping on going to the SC. I am speaking for myself. I don’t think there is any use of going there. I don’t have much hope in the Supreme Court of India. Whatever has to happen, will happen.”
The breaking point for legal critics centers heavily on the glaring discrepancies exposed in the electoral rolls. Sibal pointed out that despite months of rigorous legal arguments and repeated warnings presented to the bench regarding structural vote deletions, the judiciary opted to look away. The validity of these warnings was starkly vindicated when Bengal Appellate Tribunals began restoring wrongful deletions in an overwhelming 93 percent of decided appeals—proving systemic disenfranchisement on a mass scale.
Highlighting this painful judicial blind spot, Live Law quotes Sibal noting: “We told the SC many times that the voters’ names are being wrongly deleted and wrongly included; we argued for months. The evidence is before the public. And the appellate tribunals now say 93 per cent of the voters were wrongly removed. So the SC must have known. But no relief was given. So I am speaking for myself, I don’t have (faith)” When pressed by media personnel on whether his sharp remarks signaled direct dissatisfaction with the leadership of the Chief Justice of India, Sibal maintained a sharp distinction between institutional failure and legal duty. He clarified that the struggle of a lawyer transcends personal contentments, “We are lawyers, there is no question of being satisfied or dissatisfied. We have to fight the people’s cases. If there is injustice, we have to file a petition, whether the Court hears or not.”
