Courtroom Dramas & Legal Flops: The Kapil-Singhvi Duo and the Great Waqf Diversion

By Poonam Sharma

In the revered corridors of the Indian judiciary, where justice is meant to be swift, accurate, and holy, two names have kept cropping up—not as champions of truth or guardians of constitutional integrity—but as the courtroom version of chaos architects: Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Their latest courtroom stunts have rekindled nationwide exasperation and compelled the judiciary to shoo away what the court itself referred to as “nonsense.” It’s not just an issue of law—it’s an ongoing history of mischief in disguise of constitutional conscience.

Article 26 of the Indian Constitution provides for every religious denomination a right to administer its own religious affairs. Sounds just and clear-cut, doesn’t it? But then comes Kapil Sibal. Suddenly, everything gets murky, complicated, and—let’s be honest—completely theatrical.

What should have been a straightforward debate on the government’s role in handling religious properties was turned into a circus of unnecessary parallels—Saudi Arabia to Malaysia, U.S. to even loose references to terrorism. Sibal tried to turn a secular provision into a religious card. But the judiciary wasn’t fooling around. The court summarily rejected the arguments, seeing them for what they really were: legal acrobatics without merit.

The question is, why on earth does Kapil Sibal still argue landmark constitutional cases when history would indicate that he’s never won a big one?
Article 370 — Lost.
Ram Mandir— Lost.
The Kerala Temple Case— Lost.
The Rameshwaram Dispute— Lost.
The Singapore Controversy — Lost again.

You’d expect with that record, one to have a more modest courtroom approach. Rather, we witness grandstanding, foreign comparisons, and diversionary strategies that only prolong hearings and overwhelm our already congested courts.

Sibal’s comprehension of law relating to land, particularly religious land, is so abstract that even a simple villager—who’s been fighting land cases in tehsils for decades—understands the law better. And let alone speak of Singhvi, who’s a shotgun rider but never presents anything legally insightful.

When it comes to land—particularly religious or government land—the law is unequivocal: **The state has jurisdiction**. Whether temple, church, gurudwara, or mosque, if land is concerned, the government comes into play.

Consider Waqf properties, for instance. Even in Muslim-majority nations, these are controlled by the state. In India, the Waqf Act was enacted not in some Islamic legislature, but in the Indian Parliament. But Sibal speaks as if these lands are holy and untouchable, above scrutiny. The courts, rightly so, aren’t amused.

And the “Waqf by user” argument—those old, rotten premises under which land can be declared Waqf simply because a building was there for decades? The court has categorically reaffirmed: **no evidence, no claim**. Government land, tribal land, heritage properties under ASI—none can become Waqf by magic simply because someone prayed there once.

A dramatic courtroom exchange put everything into perspective:
If temples are regulated under particular property acts, why should not Waqf lands be handled similarly?
Why should there be a distinct legal environment for the properties of one community?

Sibal had no answer to give—only more theatrics. “It’s my land, who are you to stop me?” he bellowed. Well, the Constitution disagrees. If a law mandates registration of marriages and births, then waqf properties need to be registered as well. Otherwise, we open floodgates to unregulated land grabs in the name of religion.

Here’s where the real story lies: money and land. Sibal and Singhvi’s legal circus isn’t about religion. It’s about control over enormous assets—properties in prime urban locations, shops generating lakhs in rent, ancestral estates now declared waqf, often with no living heirs.

For instance, a waqf property in Delhi’s Connaught Place houses over 40 shops, each potentially earning ₹3 lakh a month. Yet, the rent being collected? Barely ₹15,000. Where’s the rest going? Into the pockets of political mutawallis. And these are the properties protected by Sibal’s brand of advocacy.

And whereas Hindus must struggle tooth and nail to take charge of temple affairs, there already exists a cabinet-level ministry for Muslim affairs. The question here isn’t religious freedom—it’s one of  equal accountability.

India’s judiciary is not a platform for performative lawyering or political posturing. It’s a temple of justice, not a TED Talk stage. And yet, what we witnessed from the Sibal-Singhvi pair was precisely that—performances aimed at delaying, obfuscating, and derailing.

Their actions prompt a further question: when senior lawyers with years of experience resort to such strategies, what signal does that send to the population? That manipulative behavior in court is okay? That wasting time is policy?

Fortunately, the courts no longer tolerate these farces.

With increasing scrutiny of waqf properties, particularly those purchased without registration or on government and tribal land, legal reform is unavoidable. The Modi government is said to be mulling over changes to Muslim inheritance laws—similar to the Hindu Succession Act. In a secular democracy, property, inheritance, and land laws cannot be governed by religious traditions that deny women equal rights or permit questionable posthumous declarations of property.

Kapil Sibal demanded, “Who is the state to prescribe Muslim inheritance?”
The court retorted with quiet thunder: “If Parliament prescribes Hindu inheritance, it will prescribe yours too.”

That’s the principle of equality before law—not Sibal’s selective view of secularism.

Sibal and Singhvi need to desist from playing courtroom politics and begin to show respect for the institution they are appealing to. With every frivolous petition and every half-baked comparison to foreign countries and archaic traditions, they not only undermine their credibility—they squander valuable judicial time and taxpayer dollars.

India is better than courtroom clowns wearing senior advocate gowns.

It’s time they were held accountable.