New Law Minister Veerappa Moily, meanwhile, gave notice: "The next five years would be an era of judicial and legal reforms." He spoke of measures to radically trim the huge pendency of cases - new civil and criminal courts to fast-track a notoriously sluggish process, to deliver "affordable and accessible justice to the last man in the queue". He promised a systematic attempt to fight the creeping evil of corruption in higher judiciary - making it mandatory for judges to disclose assets, taking a more serious look at an impeachment law that has never ever been used.
Also on the anvil were laws to strengthen witness protection, a less severe attitude to allowing in foreign law firms. In the midst of gay pride rallies in three big cities, he even made a bold promise to reevaluate a law that still criminalizes homosexuality in India.
On Thursday, in a historic judgment, the Delhi High Court went ahead and struck down section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, decriminalizing homosexuality. This judgment is particularly surprising, given the revisionist thinking that followed the groundbreaking nature of some of such controversial pronouncements.
After Islamic and Christian groups expressed loud reservations, the law minister had to famously renege on his own casually offered pledge to amend Article 377, the law authored during Lord Macaulay's time that makes "unnatural sex" a punishable offence. It was hardly, if ever, used punitively on consensual homosexual activity, but gay rights activists have long wanted the "criminal" tag to go.
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