Justice Deepak Gupta didn’t mince words: the collegium system, which picks judges, has become opaque, unaccountable, and dangerously insulated. He isn’t just talking theory; he’s naming cases (Umar Khalid, Gyanvapi, even the chicken-on-Ganga boat) where dissent was sidelined. In a democracy, that’s a red flag. The scary part? He says the judiciary’s credibility is still higher than Parliament or the government; but that trust is eroding fast. If people stop believing courts are fair, democracy itself starts to crack. He’s not against reform; he’s for transparency. And he’s not alone. The Tribune’s editor agrees: legacy media, not algorithms, should be society’s moral compass; especially in an age where AI twists stories into something darker. The takeaway? The quietest systems; like judge appointments; often hold the most power. And when they break, the whole house trembles.