Court: State vs. A Nobody

The film, Court: State vs. A Nobody, opens with Nikkbhai Shukla, a defense lawyer in the city of Bhoomipura, visiting his client, Arun Kumar Veluswami, who is accused of killing a 19-year-old boy in a local court. Arun is merely 19 years old, and the evidence against him is overwhelming with witness testimony and forensic data pointing to his guilt. However, what sets Arun apart from other defendants that Nikkbhai has come across is that he is illiterate and cannot speak the language of the city. Nikkbhai learns that Arun is mute and is unable to intelligibly communicate. Convinced that Arun's fate is already sealed and that justice has been predetermined, many among the city's inhabitants believe that he is guilty. Determined to challenge this predetermined verdict, Nikkbhai decides to take on the high-stakes case, despite the daunting odds against him. Despite not being able to speak a word with Arun, Nikkbhai senses that Arun is not the same as the defendants he has encountered before. This lawyer-client relationship propels him into an emotional and a mentally grueling discovery of what truly sets Arun apart. As Nikkbhai observes Arun in the police station, he begins to realize that Arun's world is vastly different from that of the middle-class or upper-class people in the city. Arun's world is rooted in the rural landscape and the idiosyncrasies that define Bhoomipura. For Arun, knowledge isn't something that can be read or accessed in schools, but rather something that can be seen, associated with the patterns of life, its sounds and scents. This knowledge seeps through the gap between cultures as Nikkbhai grows to understand it through his intuition and creative guesses. What follows is a story that revolves around Nikkbhai's ability to create a narrative that sees the world from Arun's perspective. By paying attention to the emotional patterns that weave through the 19-year-old boy, Nikkbhai must piece together the exact reason behind Arun's alleged crime, while keeping in mind the highly polarized mindset of the people within the city's environment. This delicate dynamic drives the entire high-stakes journey that unfolds in the cinematic representation of the trial's inner working. Despite facing increasing obstacles from opposing parties as well as indifference and skepticism from the city's public, the determined lawyer is fueled by his newfound connection with Arun. Nikkbhai becomes convinced that Arun is innocent – not just of the crime he is accused of, but of the societal expectations placed upon him, such as assuming guilt before being taken into account. The lawyer eventually succeeds in finding an entirely fresh perspective to the conventional proceedings by questioning the most significant witness for the state. Nikkbhai re-weaves Arun's past by collaborating with a public library in the city, resulting in the understanding of an entirely different version of what might constitute reality for the victims, the accused, and society. As Nikkbhai steadily builds his case by questioning other witnesses of the city, eventually pinning down the person with a reasonable doubt, it ultimately sets the motion towards a dramatic re-orientation within the state's prescribed narrative of societal norms that exist at the top.