General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Kartavya (कर्तव्य) (1995 film)

Kartavya (कर्तव्य) is a 1995 Indian Hindi-language action film directed by Raj Kanwar, starring Sanjay Kapoor and Juhi Chawla, produced by Rahul Gupta for the banner Prime International.¹^•² The title means "duty" in Hindi. The film is remembered chiefly for its troubled production: Divya Bharti was originally cast as the female lead and had completed roughly 30 percent of her work when she died suddenly, and Juhi Chawla replaced her.¹ Released on 29 September 1995, the film was a box-office flop.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Director / producer	Raj Kanwar; produced by Rahul Gupta for Prime International²
Release	29 September 1995, Hindi language, India³
Lead cast	Sanjay Kapoor as Karan Singh, Juhi Chawla as Kajal Sahay, Amrish Puri as Thakur Ugranarayan Singh, Aruna Irani as Gayetridevi Singh⁵
Runtime	156 minutes (Box Office India); other listings give about 2 hours 38 minutes⁴^•⁶
Music	Dilip Sen and Sameer Sen; lyrics by Sameer and Rani Malik⁴
Box office	Flop; budget ₹35 million (₹3.5 crore) against an India nett gross of ₹33.5 million (₹3.35 crore)⁴
IMDb rating	5.4/10 from 95 user votes²

Spoilers

Plot

Karan (Sanjay Kapoor) lives happily in Bombay with his mother Sharda Varma (Moushumi Chatterjee), a public prosecutor, and is about to marry Kajal (Juhi Chawla), daughter of Ramakant Sahay (Saeed Jaffrey). On the day of his engagement he learns that the woman who raised him is not his biological mother.⁷^•²

His search leads him to Sundernagar, where he finds his birth mother, the heiress Gayetri Singh (Aruna Irani). Her scheming stepbrother Thakur Ugranarayan Singh (Amrish Puri) had her husband killed and had her confined to a mental asylum so that he could inherit the family estate, with the help of corrupt associates. Karan vows to avenge the injustice done to her and to punish those responsible for her condition.⁸^•⁹ The film's title refers to the son's duty (kartavya) toward his wronged mother, which Karan sets out to fulfill by uncovering the truth of his existence.⁷

Cast and crew

The ensemble included, alongside the leads, Moushumi Chatterjee as Sharda Varma, Om Puri as Ghulam Rasul, Saeed Jaffrey as Ramakant Sahay, Gulshan Grover as Inspector Tribhuvan, Alok Nath as Dr. Neelkanth, Mohnish Behl as Balbir Singh, Raj Kiran as Inspector Suraj Singh, Jagdeep as P.K. Dhoot, Asha Sachdev, Aashif Sheikh, Ashwin Kaushal, Pramod Moutho, and Deven Bhojani as Karan's college friend.⁵^•³

Behind the camera, the screenplay was by Ranbir Pushp and the dialogues by Kamlesh Pandey; cinematography was by Harmeet Singh, editing by A. Muthu, and the music by the duo Dilip Sen-Sameer Sen, with playback singers including Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Sukhwinder Singh, and Pankaj Udhas. Choreography was by Saroj Khan, Chinni Prakash, and B H Tharun Kumar, and the action director was Ravi Dewan.⁷^•¹⁰

Production and the Divya Bharti recasting

Divya Bharti was chosen as the female lead and had completed about 30 percent of the film when she died suddenly; Juhi Chawla was cast in her place.¹ According to IMDb trivia, the change in cast and over-budgeting meant the film took nearly four years to make.² The production banner was Prime International, and the film was distributed by Eros International.⁴^•¹¹

Box office

Kartavya opened on 180 screens and was declared a flop. Box Office India records a first day of ₹44,00,000, a first weekend of ₹1,30,00,000, a first week of ₹2,09,00,000, and a total India nett gross of ₹33,500,000 against a budget of ₹3,50,00,000, with footfalls of 4,239,000.⁴ Bollywood Hungama gives the same India nett figure of ₹33.5 million (₹3.35 crore) but reports a worldwide gross of ₹48.1 million (₹4.81 crore; ₹46.5 million (₹4.65 crore) India gross plus ₹1.6 million (₹0.16 crore) overseas), while Box Office India puts worldwide gross at ₹58 million (₹5.80 crore) including $50,000 overseas; the two trackers disagree on the gross totals.¹²^•⁴ The largest territorial markets were Mumbai (₹9,050,000 nett) and Delhi/UP (₹7,350,000 nett).⁴

Reception and availability

Rediff.com found the film "embarrassing".¹ On IMDb it holds a rating of 5.4/10 from 95 votes.² As of 2026 the film streams on Amazon Prime Video, including the ad-supported tier and the Ultraplaybox Amazon Channel.⁶

The 2026 film of the same name

A separate Hindi crime thriller also titled Kartavya, unrelated to the 1995 film, was released on Netflix on 15 May 2026. Directed and written by Pulkit, produced by Gauri Khan for Red Chillies Entertainment, and starring Saif Ali Khan as a small-town police officer caught between duty and his family's safety, it runs 149 minutes and also features Rasika Dugal, Sanjay Mishra, Manish Chaudhari, and Saurabh Dwivedi. Critics gave it mixed reviews, averaging 2.6/5 across nine reviews on Bollywood.com, with praise for Saif Ali Khan's performance and criticism of predictable plotting.¹³^•¹⁴

References

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