Jolly LLB

Plot

Jagdish Tyagi a.k.a. Jolly (Arshad Warsi) is a Delhi based lawyer staying with his brother-in-law Pratap (Manoj Pahwa) and is in a relationship with Sandhya (Amrita Rao). He happens to see prominent criminal lawyer Tejinder Rajpal (Boman Irani) successfully defending Rahul Dewan (Rajeev Siddhartha), a boy from a high society family in a sessions court, who is accused of drunken driving in a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado causing death of six people sleeping on the footpath.

Jolly, desperate to have some money and fame, decides to pursue the case and files a PIL in the court against Rahul Dewan. After initially reprimanding Jolly for his mistakes in filing the PIL and taking the press reports as an evidence, Justice Sunderlal Tripathi (Saurabh Shukla) warns Jolly to collect some evidence before the next hearing. Jolly then runs into Albert Pinto (Harsh Chhaya), who claims to have witnessed the accident but soon learns that he is a lackey of Rajpal and was a plan to extract more money from the Dewan family. As part of the deal, Pinto gives Jolly a share of the money and turns hostile in the court. Sandhya and Kaul saab (Ramesh Deo) chides him for compromising on justice for his greed. He returns the money to Rajpal and challenges him to win the case.

With the help of his brother-in-law, he collects the video footage of the car involved in the accident and present it to the court. Rajpal counters that the car was driven by the driver of Dewan family and the footage was fake. Jolly refutes it by successfully cross examining the driver, who finally accept that he has registered a false statement. The Judge orders the police to provide a bodyguard for Jolly after he was manhandled by assistants of Rajpal. Although Sub-Inspector Rathi tries to sabotage Jolly, but with the help of the bodyguard, Jolly leaves for Gorakhpur after he comes to know that Sadakant Mishra (Susheel Pandey), a survivor of the accident stays there. Jolly after passing through many hurdles successfully brings Mishra to the court. Rajpal tries to scuttle proceedings but the hesitant judge overrules him. Mishra states that Rathi had threatened him after the accident and fabricated the investigation. He was only allowed to go after he offered his hard-earned money and jewelry. Mishra also identifies Rahul Dewan as the one who drove the car. After the emotional closing arguments by Rajpal and Jolly, the judge directs the police department to suspend Rathi and initiate a criminal inquiry against him and also declares Rahul Dewan as guilty of the crime and sentences him to seven years in jail under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code.

Cast

Production

The story is inspired by the events of the Sanjeev Nanda hit-and-run case of 1999.

Critical reception

Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 3.5 stars and said "Jolly LLB is a power-packed courtroom drama. But, most importantly, it celebrates the spirit of the common man seeking justice and impartiality most effectively. Just don't miss this jolly good film!". Anupama Chopra of the Hindustan Times said parts of the film are "laugh-out-loud funny, but underneath the humour is an angry critique of the system, so easily manipulated by the rich and so difficult to penetrate for the poor." Chopra gave the film three stars, saying that the love angle is clumsy and that Rao "stumbles badly" in a key scene.

Music

The music of Jolly LLB was composed by Krsna. Lyrics were penned by Subhash Kapoor and Vayu (for "Jhooth Boliya"). The first song promo, "Mere Toh L Lag Gaye" by Bappi Lahiri, was released on 13 February 2013. In the soundtrack, the song has been cut into two different songs, one titled "Law Lag Gaye" while the other "L Lag Gaye". The second song promo, "Jhooth Boliya" by Kamal Khan was released on 15 February 2013. The full soundtrack was released on 22 February 2013 under the label T-Series. It consists of eight songs.

Awards

Sequel

A sequel, Jolly LLB 2 was released in February 2017.