''Kanoon'' () is a 1960 Indian

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

-language film directed by B. R. Chopra. The film stars

Rajendra Kumar Rajendra Kumar Tuli (20 July 1927 – 12 July 1999) was an Indian actor who starred in Bollywood films. Starting his career in 1949, he appeared in more than 80 films in a career spanning over four decades. He was popularly known as the 'Jubil ...

Nanda Nanda may refer to: Indian history and religion * Nanda Empire, ruled by the Nanda dynasty, an Indian royal dynasty ruling Magadha in the 4th century BCE ** Mahapadma Nanda, first Emperor of the Nanda Empire ** Dhana Nanda (died c. 321 BCE), last ...

Ashok Kumar Kumudlal Ganguly (13 October 1911 – 10 December 2001), better known by his stage name Ashok Kumar and also by Dadamoni, was an Indian actor who attained iconic status in Indian cinema and who was a member of the cinematic Ganguly family. He ...

Mehmood Mahmud is a transliteration of the male Arabic given name (), common in most parts of the Islamic world. It comes from the Arabic triconsonantal root Ḥ-M-D, meaning ''praise'', along with ''Muhammad''. Siam Mahmud *Mahmood (singer) (born 19 ...

Shashikala Shashikala Saigal (née Jawalkar; 4 August 1932 – 4 April 2021), better known by her first name, was an Indian film and television actress, who played supporting roles in hundreds of Bollywood films beginning in the 1940s. Early years Shash ...

Jeevan Jeevan is an Indian sub-continent first name meaning 'life' or 'bringer of life', that may be used by males or females. The name originates from the Sanskrit language but is more often used as a Nepalese language name, a Sikh or a Hindu name. Alte ...

and

Om Prakash Om Prakash (born Om Prakash Chibber 19 December 1919 – 21 February 1998) was an Indian film actor. He was born in Jammu as Om Prakash Chibber and went on to become a well-known character actor of Bollywood. His most well-known movies are Na ...

. The film presents a case against capital punishment, arguing that witnesses may be genuinely deceived, and their consequent inadvertently tendered false testimony may lead someone wrongly to the gallows. The film was a courtroom drama of a murder case, where the judge's prospective son-in-law (Rajendra Kumar) is the defence lawyer in a case of murder, for which he suspects his would-be father-in-law. The film was India's second songless

talkie A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

. The first one was ''

Andha Naal ''Andha Naal'' ( en, italic=yes, That Day, ) is a 1954 Indian Tamil-language mystery- thriller film, produced by A. V. Meiyappan and directed by S. Balachander. It is the first film noir in Tamil cinema, and the first Tamil film to be made ...

'', a Tamil movie. The movie features an innovative Indo-Western ballet performance with instrumental music by Salil Choudhury.

Plot synopsis

Kalidas (

) is presented before court for the murder of Ganpat. He pleads guilty, but claims that the court can do him no harm, as he has already served a sentence for the murder of the same man. An emotionally overcharged Kalidas asks judge Badri Prasad (

) what gives law the right to deprive an innocent man of something it cannot return him, before collapsing and dying. The shocking incident makes its way to the press and becomes a matter of hot debate in the city. Two judges, Mr. Jha and Mr. Savalkar (

Iftekhar Sayedna Iftekhar Ahmed Sharif (22 February 1924 – 4 March 1995), often mononymously credited as Iftekhar, was an Indian actor who mainly worked in Hindi cinema. He is known for his role as a police officer. Career Iftekhar was born in ...

in a guest appearance), discuss the case. Badri Prasad, who is well known for never having awarded a death sentence, has a friendly argument with Jha, which leads to a wager that it is possible for someone to get away scot-free with murder. In the meanwhile, romance is blossoming between Badri Prasad's daughter Meena (

) and advocate Kailash Khanna (

), one of the rising stars in the legal fraternity, and Badri Prasad's protégé. The young couple's visit to ballet is rather unremarkable, except for the surreptitious appearance of Ashok Kumar, who is seen by the viewer romancing an unknown lady (

) in a private box. Incidentally, the murdered man Ganpat is her husband. She married a rich man during her first husband's (Ganpat) lifetime and inherited his property. This was an

illegal marriage Illegal, or unlawful, typically describes something that is explicitly prohibited by law, or is otherwise forbidden by a state or other governing body. Illegal may also refer to: Law * Violation of law * Crime, the practice of breaking the ...

, and Dhaniram was blackmailing her, as he was privy to this information. Badri Prasad's son Vijay (

) is heavily indebted to Dhaniram (

) a local

money lender In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that de ...

who, having obtained the former's signature on a blank piece of paper, threatens to have his entire property confiscated. Afraid to face his stern father with the truth, Vijay pleads with Kailash to intercede with the moneylender. The latter agrees to do so, despite initial reluctance. Kailash drops in at the money lender's place to have a word with him. Their exchange is interrupted by the arrival of Badri Prasad's look-alike. Kailash does not want to be seen with Dhaniram, so he hides in a side room, instructing Dhaniram not to disclose to the judge that he had come there. Dhaniram receives the unexpected guest through an already open door. Kailash watches in horror from the inner room, as the unscheduled visitor (

) stabs his host to death. Unsure of what to do, Kailash walks away. Unfortunately, a petty thief, Kaalia (

Nana Palsikar Nana Palshikar ( mr, नाना पळशीकर) (1907 – 1 June 1984) was an Indian actor who appeared in over 80 Hindi films. He made his film debut in 1935 with ''Dhuwandhar'', and went on to play character roles in both Hindi mainstream ...

), who comes in with the intention of burglary, is apprehended at the scene of the crime and presented in Badri Prasad's court. He is shown being caught by Sub-Inspector Das (

Jagdish Raj Jagdish Raj Khurana (1928 – 28 July 2013) was a Bollywood actor who holds a Guinness World Record for being the most type-cast actor. He played the role of a police inspector in 144 films. Early life and career He was born in 1928 in the tow ...

) and Hawaldar Ram Singh. Kaalia's hands are completely drenched in blood. Torn between his loyalty to his mentor and future father-in-law, on the one hand, and his moral duty to save an innocent man, on the other, Kailash resolves to defend the accused, while at the same time, avoiding bringing out in public the painful truth. What ensues is an absorbing psychological thriller with an unexpected end.

Cast

as Advocate Kailash Khanna *

as Judge Badri Prasad *

as Meena Prasad, Badri Prasad's daughter *

as Vijay Prasad, Badri Prasad's son *

Manmohan Krishna Manmohan Krishna (26 February 1922 – 3 November 1990) was a popular Indian film actor and director, who worked in Hindi films for four decades, mostly as a character actor. He started his career as a professor in Physics and held master's de ...

as Prosecuting Attorney *

as Sub-Inspector Das *

as Kalidas *

as Kaalia *

as Judge Savalkar *

as Dhaniram *

Moolchand Moolchand was a prolific character actor in Hindi and Panjabi cinema, who was active from 1950 to his death in the late 1980s. He appeared in over 250 films. These films spanned the parallel cinema of Guru Dutt to the wrestler films of Dara Sing ...

as Advocate *

Nazir Kashmiri Nazir Kashmiri was a prolific character actor in Hindi cinema who appeared in over 100 films. His career extended from 1941 to 2008 spanning 67 years. He started his career in Lahore. He appeared in several Lahore productions before moving to Bo ...

as a jury member *

Shubha Khote Shubha Balsavar (''née'' Khote) is an Indian film and television actress who has worked in several Hindi-language and few Marathi-language films. She is also a former women's national champion in swimming and cycling. Early life and educatio ...

as stage announcer *

Gopi Krishna (dancer) Gopi Krishna (22 August 1935 – 18 February 1994) was an Indian Kathak dancer, actor and choreographer. He also studied Bharatnatyam. In 1952, at the age of seventeen, Gopi Krishna became one of the youngest choreographers in Hindi film his ...

as Male dancer in stage show *

Leela Chitnis Leela Chitnis (''née'' Nagarkar; 9 September 1909 – 14 July 2003) was an Indian actress in the Indian film industry, active from 1930s to 1980s. In her early years she starred as a romantic lead, but she is best remembered for her later role ...

as Kalidas's wife * Balwant Singh * Dewan Sharar as Judge Jha * Kailash Sharma * Ravi Kant * Tina Misquitta as Tina Katkar * Harbans Darshan M. Arora as advocate.

Murder and the Forensics

There are interesting forensic details to be noted in the

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the ...

. The Badri Prasad look-alike who commits the murder comes from the main door, stabs Dhaniram in the stomach, switches off the light, and goes back quietly through the same door. Much later, Kaalia, a petty

thief Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some ...

, ascends to the first-floor residence of Dhaniram, via a pipe and then through the open window. The lights are off. His steps fall on spilled milk. The milk got spilled by a black cat, which jumped on the glass of milk. After the murder, when Kailash Khanna comes out from the adjoining room and is trying to contemplate what happened and why a cat is shown running around. In fact, this alerts Kailash to run away from the scene himself). Public Prosecutor Kailash Khanna enters Dhaniram's house exactly at 11.00 pm on 30 June. This is proved by two points. (1) When Meena asks Kailash to go to Dhaniram's house to collect the incriminating paper from him, Kailash informs her that he had to attend the Bar Association's dinner that day. So he would not be free before 10.30 or perhaps 11.00 pm. (2) Later, when he is shown walking towards Dhanirams' house, a clock in the background can be heard chiming. One can easily count 11 chimes from the moment Kailash is walking towards Dhaniram's house, till Dhaniram opens the door (chiming stops after that). So the action starts at 11.00 pm. The police surgeon's (

Forensic Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...

expert's) report says that Dhaniram died between 11.30 pm and 12.00 midnight (on the night of 30th). Kaalia is caught descending the pipe hurriedly at 00.08 am on 1 July.

Weaknesses in Prosecution reasoning

* The prosecuting attorney (

) asserts in the beginning of their case, that Dhaniram was sleeping (because the lights of his house were found off). However, the main door of the house was open (Badri Prasad's lookalike had come and gone through that, and Dhaniram's corpse could not have possibly closed the door back). The question arose as to why the door was open at that untimely hour (12 midnight). The prosecution then changes the story and says that Dhaniram was awake at that time, and that explained the open main door. But he was trapped by Kailash immediately by indicating that if Dhaniram was indeed awake, the lights should have been on! Indeed, there were two contrasting things at the scene of crime – lights were off, indicating the owner of the house was sleeping and the main door was open, indicating the owner of the house was awake. In fact, the door was opened (and never closed after that) by Dhaniram when Kailash Khanna went to his house to take back the blank signed paper written by Vijay (

). At the time Kailash Khanna knocks at his house, Dhaniram is shown preparing himself to drink a glass of milk (he never gets to drink that milk, and it is the milk in that glass, which gets spilt later, perhaps by a cat, on which Kaalia's footprints are later imprinted). He opens the door, and feeling ingratiated at having such an honourable guest, offers a glass of sherbet to Kailash. During their talks, Kailash peeps out of the window and sees Badrinath (in fact Badri Prasad's lookalike) coming towards the door. Kailash does not want to be seen with Dhaniram, so he hides in a side room. Badri Prasad's lookalike is received by Dhaniram, through an already open door (he had never closed the door after Kailash had entered). Without saying anything, the newcomer stabs him in the abdomen quietly, switches off the lights and goes away, without closing the door behind him. Kailash sees all this through the side room. Later, he also escapes from the house, without closing the door. This leaves the crime scene with two contrasting situations – a switched off light and an open door. This contrasting situation was never explained satisfactorily by the prosecution. The best it could say was that both the door was open and lights were on when Kaalia came in via the pipe. Kaalia murdered Dhaniram and then switched off the lights. But Kailash quite rightly points out, that if Kaalia had indeed switched off the lights, the switch board should be smeared with blood (as Kaalia's hands were covered with blood when he was caught). No such blood was found on the switch board. This allowed Kailash to make a deep dent in the story of the prosecution. The persons attending the court are shown admiring Kailash's reasoning.

Weaknesses in Defence reasoning

The defence represented by Kailash Khanna too has several fatal weaknesses, although these were never brought to the notice of the court by the prosecution side. Here are some: * Kaalia is shown being caught by Subinspector Das at 11.55 pm. The time is noted by Das by his own wrist watch. In India, generally a murder case is committed to trial months or even years after the murder. During the trial, Kailash proves that Das's watch is slow by 13 minutes. He asks Das the time. Das consults the very same wrist watch he was wearing at the time of murder and tells the court that the time is 3.55 pm. At that very same time, the court's watch is showing 4.08 pm, proving that Das's watch was 13 minutes slow. By this fact, Kailash proves that Kaalia was caught at 12.08 am (on 1 July) rather than on 11.55 pm on 30 June thus conveniently bringing him out of suspicion. It is incomprehensible that the Subinspector kept his watch slower by the same amount over the months it took the case to come to trial. * Kailash reasons that the police surgeon mentioned in his postmortem report that the murder took place between 11.30 and 12.00. This quite possibly includes 12.00 midnight also. And if this time is taken as the true time of murder, Kaalia's arrest at 12.08 can be easily explained. But Kailash takes the ploy of taking an

arithmetic mean In mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean ( ) or arithmetic average, or just the '' mean'' or the ''average'' (when the context is clear), is the sum of a collection of numbers divided by the count of numbers in the collection. The co ...

of the two extremes of time mentioned in the report and assumes (without objection from the prosecution), that the murder took place at 11.45 pm (on 30 June). He then goes on to reason that Kaalia should have been with the corpse for a full 23 minutes (he was caught at 00.08 am on 1 July) with his hands smeared in blood. This is obviously unlikely. And thus Kaalia cannot be the murderer. Strangely, this defective reasoning is never challenged by the prosecution. * The prosecution story is that Kaalia went up the pipe to Dhaniram's house (through an open window) and tried to steal something. Dhaniram, who was sleeping at that time woke up and tried to apprehend Kaalia. During the struggle, milk got spilt (in fact it was already spilt when Kaalia came in). Kaalia stabbed Dhaniram and rushed back to the window to get down, and in the process his footprints were imprinted on the spilt milk. Kailash could have easily punched holes in this story, by pointing out that the footprints were directed inwards (towards the centre of the room where Dhaniram's corpse was lying). According to the prosecution story, the footprints should have been directed outwards (towards the window, from where he eventually came out). This interesting fact was never brought to the court's notice. Furthermore, when Kaalia came in, he was tiptoeing (to avoid anyone listening to his footsteps). This led to two successive footprints being very near. When a person is running (as the case should have been when Kaalia ran out of the room after supposedly murdering Dhaniram), the two successive footprints should be much farther apart. This fact was also never brought to the notice of the court.

Trivia

* The year of Dhaniram's (

) death is not mentioned in the film, but it can be derived from the contents of the film. He may have been murdered on the night of 30 June 1959. This is because on the next day of the murder, when Badri Prasad's daughter Meena (

), is serving breakfast to her father, the radio announces in Hindi in the background – "''Aaj Budhwar hai aur July ki pehli Taarikh''" oday is Wednesday, and the first of July The film was made in 1960. Before this year, 1959 is the nearest year, where Wednesday falls on 1 July. * The wager between Badri Prasad (

) and Justice Jha, that it is possible to murder someone without being sentenced, occurs only 2 days earlier – on 28 June. When Kailash Khanna, towards the end of the film, presents Badri Prasad's diary to the court, he mentions this date. * In Indian Courts, a person whose true identity is unknown or must be withheld in a legal action is called ''Ashok Kumar''. The reason for this is actor Ashok Kumar's character in this movie.

Awards and nominations

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, B. R. Chopra ,

National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi The National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of several ...

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1962 Events January * January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand. * January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism. * January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wor ...

, B. R. ChopraAwards
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Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

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Filmfare Award for Best Director The Filmfare Best Director Award is one of the main awards presented given by the annual Filmfare Awards to recognise directors working in Hindi cinema. It was first presented in 1954 in the inaugural year. Superlatives Bimal Roy has the r ...

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Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award The Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor is given by ''Filmfare'' as part of its annual Filmfare Awards for Hindi films, to recognise a male actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a supporting role. Although the awards start ...

, , - , C.J. Pavri ,

Filmfare Award for Best Story The Filmfare Award for Best Story is given by ''Filmfare'' as part of its annual Filmfare Awards for Hindi films, to recognise a writer who wrote a film's story. List of winners 1950s * 1955 Mukhram Sharma – '' Aulad'' * 1956 Rajinder Sing ...

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Filmfare Award for Best Film The Filmfare Award for Best Film is given by the '' Filmfare'' magazine as part of its annual Filmfare Awards for Hindi films. The award was first given in 1954. Here is a list of the award winners and the nominees of the respective years. Ea ...

References

External links

* {{National Film Award Best Feature Film Hindi 1960 films Films scored by Salil Chowdhury 1960s Hindi-language films Indian legal films Films directed by B. R. Chopra