India, March 29 -- The recent fire in the out-house of Justice Yashwant Varma of the Delhi High Court and the subsequent photographs of burnt cash bundles, followed by calls for judicial reform, takes one back to April 25, 2016.

That was the day the 43rd Chief Justice of India, Tirath Singh Thakur Pogali, broke down in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the institutional decay he was witnessing - particularly, the chronic delay in judicial appointments.

Ever since the Supreme Court struck down the Government's attempt to replace the opaque Collegium system with the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), relations between the Executive and the Judiciary have been tense.

Justice Thakur's emotional plea was clear: Why, h...