The film unfolds in Mumbai, primarily around a bustling municipal building where the everyday business of permits and licenses becomes a theater for corruption. At the center is Kimtilal Saxena [Kader Khan], a newly appointed clerk who initially tries to keep his integrity intact. When a man arrives with a request to extend his home and offers a bribe, Kimtilal politely declines. The encounter reveals how the system’s expectations have shifted: the man is told to fetch a cup of tea from the tiny shop opposite the office, and what follows is a stark lesson in how money travels through the smallest moments of daily life. At Kutti’s tea stall, the eccentric vendor [Johnny Lever] explains that each spoonful of sugar is now worth 200 rupees as a bribe—a pithy symbol of how times have changed and how quickly a bribe can become a routine, accepted practice. The man pays, obtains his permit, and the moral line between right and wrong blurs as Kimtilal quietly settles accounts with Kutti every evening, signaling that the money trail touches everyone in the office.
From there, the narrative widens to reveal how a handful of powerful players maneuver behind the scenes. One evening, Kimtilal is grabbed by a small group and brought before Ranbir Gupta, a real estate developer, Sampath Seth, a license officer, and Jagan Dhamaliya, a feared thug who provides muscle to ensure smooth operations. They offer a fat bribe and establish an arrangement to pay him off regularly for all their needs. Kimtilal readily accepts, and the rot spreads further. As the office’s internal network of favors grows, the same pattern reverberates through family life and friendships. Kimtilal is respected by his colleagues, and his wife and son share a comfortable home; his relationship with his fellow clerk Girdharilal grows into a deep, decades-long friendship, and their sons, Kamal and Vijay, become close friends as well.
In the personal sphere, allegiances and tensions emerge. Kamal, the son of Girdharilal, fancies Kamini Sampat, though no one in the circle realizes yet that Kamini is Sampath’s daughter. Vijay, the other son, has a girlfriend at a bar, a detail that will later underscore the social pressures and divisions fueled by wealth and status. Kamini’s father Sampath becomes a volatile figure, torn between pride in his daughter and a rigid code of class that constrains her choices. When Kamini asks for her father’s blessing to marry Kamal, Sampath storms Kimtilal’s home in anger, insisting that the match violates the family’s status. Kimtilal, never a fool or a sycophant, points out that Kamini herself drove the proposal, and that if the children have chosen each other, the parents should bless their union. The clash forces Kimtilal to rethink the costs of the bribes and the balance of power in their social circle.
Meanwhile, Kamal’s own career takes a pivotal turn. He learns that his application to join the Indian Police Service has been approved, a moment that Kimtilal anticipated and helped arrange. Shortly after, Vijay discovers that although his own exam results were strong, his application has been denied. The anger and frustration among the two families threaten to erupt into open conflict, with Girdharilal openly accusing Kimtilal of corruption and threatening to expose him. The tension marks a turning point: Vijay allies with other like-minded youths to launch a grassroots campaign to publicly expose bribery and corruption, a move that gathers public sympathy and begins to erode the old order.
Kimtilal denies the charges publicly, but disaster soon crystallizes the stakes. The Nirmal building project, which received approvals thanks to the same system Kimtilal embodies, collapses, killing many residents. Thakur, the office’s original signatory, panics; Jagan silences him, and the web of complicity tightens. Crucially, evidence slips into the hands of Kamal through a taped conversation between Kutti and Kimtilal, sending shockwaves through the family and forcing Kamal to act.
Kimtilal finally confesses, delivering a blunt critique of the bureaucratic machine that rewards bribery at every turn. He traces how every major moment in Kamal’s life—the schooling, the college, the police academy, even Kamal’s wedding—was compromised by the money that greased the wheels of people in power. Kamal, indignant, declares that he never asked for such a life to be paved with bribes, yet Kimtilal reminds him that the cost of many lives—the Nirmal building tragedy—was borne to secure his future. The confrontation culminates in Kamal arresting Kimtilal, and the trial is presided over by DA Kamini, a figure who embodies the same system Kimtilal once manipulated. Yet Kimtilal outsmarts the case and evades conviction on the evidence.
The drama takes an even sharper turn when Vijay learns the truth: Kimtilal was the man who framed his father. He races to the courthouse just as Kimtilal is being let free, and in a moment of raw, impulsive justice, he stabs Kimtilal. The act exposes the root of the corruption and its entanglement with Sampath and Gupta, a nexus that had threaded through the highest and lowest rungs of power. Kimtilal dies from the injuries, having finally revealed the full extent of the network that enabled his own rise and Kamal’s birth. In the aftermath, the film at once acknowledges the harm caused by systemic bribery and offers a tempered note of progress: improvements in governance begin to take hold, and the public’s willingness to demand accountability grows. Vijay, having faced the consequences of the choices around him, is released from prison on a limited term, and he returns to the embrace of his family and friends, leaving the audience with a hopeful vision for a future where the common man—“aam aadmi”—has a better chance to navigate a system that had long kept him at arm’s length.
- Vijay Girdharilal [Anil Kapoor]
- Ranbir Gupta [Raza Murad]
- Inspector Kamal Kimtilal [Jackie Shroff]
- Mun. Supdt. Thakur [Sudhir Pandey]
- Kutti [Johnny Lever]
- Kimtilal Saxena [Kader Khan]
- Jagan Dhamaliya [Kiran Kumar]
- Kailaash [Sudhir Joshi]
- Girdharilal’s wife [Anjana Mumtaz]
- Kamini Sampat / Kamini K. Kimtilal [Farha Naaz]
- Girdharilal [Sujit Kumar]
- Sampta (Kamini’s dad) [Shafi Inamdar]
- Police Commissioner [Chandrashekhar Vaidya]
- Bar Owner [Kimi Katkar]
- Mrs. Shanti Kimtilal [Aparajita]
This reimagined arc preserves the film’s core critique of a system that allows bribery to infiltrate nearly every facet of life, while weaving a more expansive portrait of the characters and their intertwined fates, and it keeps faith with the cast’s essential presence and the relationships that drive the story forward.
