General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Adalat (अदालत)

Adalat (अदालत) is a 1976 Hindi-language action drama film directed by Narendra Bedi and produced by A. K. Nadiadwala, starring Amitabh Bachchan in a double role as the farmer Dharamchand ("Dharma") and his son Raju, alongside Waheeda Rehman, Neetu Singh, and Kader Khan¹. The plot follows a village farmer who moves to Bombay for work, is framed in a smuggling case and imprisoned, and, after release, seeks revenge on the men responsible for his family's suffering². The title is not related to the 1958 film of the same name directed by Kalidas with music by Madan Mohan³, although some databases conflate the two.⁴

Key fact	Detail
Director and writer	Narendra Bedi (story and screenplay)¹
Producer	A. K. Nadiadwala, for A. K. Movies⁵
Release	Variously dated 29 December 1976 and 7 January 1977; a 1976 theatrical release is widely stated⁶^•⁷
Lead role	Amitabh Bachchan as Thakur Dharam Chand "Dharma" and Raj "Raju" Thakur, father and son¹
Other leads	Waheeda Rehman (Radha), Neetu Singh (Geeta Verma), Kader Khan (Police Inspector Khan)¹
Music	Kalyanji–Anandji; lyrics by Gulshan Bawra⁵
Recognition	Bachchan received a Filmfare Best Actor nomination for the performance⁸

Spoilers

Plot

Dharamchand, called Dharma, is a simple and honest village farmer. When his wife Radha (Waheeda Rehman) gives birth to a son, they name him Raju¹. Dharma saves three city men, Ajit (Anwar Hussain), Suresh, and Sujit (Sujit Kumar), from a man-eating tiger, and they offer him a job in Bombay whenever he needs one¹.⁹

After a drought and the loss of his cattle, Dharma takes the offer and moves to the city with his family, including his sister Lakshmi (Heena Kausar), and is made manager of Ajit's warehouse². Unaware that his employers are involved in the smuggling trade, Dharma is tricked into signing documents that make him the warehouse's legal owner; police raids uncover trafficked gold and drugs, and he is convicted and jailed².⁹

While Dharma is in prison his family suffers badly, and his sister commits suicide². On release, Dharma sets out to avenge the atrocities committed against him¹⁰. In the film's second half, his grown son Raju, also played by Bachchan, reunites with him and the two seek revenge on the criminals responsible for the family's sufferings⁷. Police Inspector Khan (Kader Khan) repeatedly confronts Dharma during his vendetta¹¹.

Bachchan's double role and performance

Adalat was one of the early films in which Amitabh Bachchan carried a full double role as father and son; his first double role had come in Bandhe Haath (1973)⁸.¹² In the film, the father's dialogues are in Hindi and Awadhi, while the son Raju, an England-returned young man, speaks English, and the actor switches between registers within the same scenes⁸.¹¹ The performance earned him a Filmfare Best Actor nomination alongside his Kabhi Kabhie role, in a year when the award went to Sanjeev Kumar for Arjun Pandit⁸.¹¹

Retrospective assessments place the film among Bachchan's distinctive work, describing him as "the guileless peasant who is forced to become a shrewd, retribution-seeking crime lord"⁸. One scholarly history of Bombay cinema notes the film's village-bumpkin figure in a list of 1970s angry-young-man types¹³.

Music

The score was composed by the duo Kalyanji–Anandji, with lyrics by Gulshan Bawra⁵. Playback singers included Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi, Mukesh, and K. J. Yesudas¹⁴. Named songs include "Tumse Dur Rehke" (Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi), "Humka Aisa Waisa Na Samjho" (Mukesh and Amitabh Bachchan), "Behna O Behna" (Mukesh), and "Do Din Ki Jawani" (K. J. Yesudas)⁷.

One musical sequence has drawn scholarly attention: Amitabh Bachchan and Neetu Singh's "kung-fu dance", staged to the 1975 Carl Douglas disco number "Kung Fu Fighting", which a 1979 Filmfare article cited as an early exemplar of Bombay cinema's turn to disco dancing, simulating the aesthetics of Pam Grier and Rudy Ray Moore films¹⁵.

Kader Khan's breakthrough

For Kader Khan, the role of Inspector Khan marked an arrival as an actor; he had previously done small roles in Daag and Bairaag, and a retrospective review calls his work here possibly his best performance, delivered without the loudness that later became a trademark¹¹. The same reviewer notes that the role prefigured the cult status later attached to the police-inspector part in Qurbaani played by Amjad Khan¹¹.

Release dates and runtime

The film's dating is reported inconsistently. Zee5, Indian Film History, and Gadgets 360 give 7 January 1977⁷, while the BollywoodMDB year calendar lists Adalat among 29 December 1976 releases⁶, and IMDb, Apple TV, and the Rotten Tomatoes listing date it 1976¹.¹⁰ Runtimes likewise differ across platforms: 2h 18m on IMDb and Gadgets 360, 2h 55m on Apple TV, and about 140 minutes on the DVD release cataloged by Indiana University¹.¹⁰^•⁵ IMDb shows a user rating of 6.3/10 from 400 votes¹.

Later availability

The film circulates on home video and streaming: Ultra Video of Mumbai issued a DVD in 2005, in Hindi with English subtitles⁵, and the full movie is currently offered on Zee5 and OTT Play¹⁶. A full-length upload on YouTube in 2025 has drawn over 10 million views¹⁷.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Hindi films of the 1970s › Released 1976 to 1979

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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