Court – State vs. A Nobody is a 2025 Indian Telugu-language legal drama film written and directed by Ram Jagadeesh. The film offers a profound and unsettling commentary on the intersectionality of caste, capital, and gender within India’s legal and justice system. With a compelling cast including Priyadarshi Pulikonda, Harsh Roshan, Sridevi, Sivaji, P. Sai Kumar, Harsha Vardhan, Rohini, Subhalekha Sudhakar, Surabhi Prabhavathi, and Rajasekhar Aningi, the film speaks to the everyday injustices experienced by those deemed invisible in the eyes of the state and society.

Court is currently streaming on Netflix. The movie astounds the viewers by its raw honesty and the issues it raises about the Indian judicial system. The film begins with two persons, who appear to belong to the poor class, visiting the office of a famous advocate, Mohan Rao (played by P. Sai Kumar), regarding the case of Chandrashekar, known as Chandu (played by Harsh Roshan). Chandu is under trial, charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act—a law intended to protect minors from sexual violence but, in this case, weaponized against him. Instead of meeting the advocate, they are greeted by his assistant, Surya Teja (played by Priyadarshi Pulikonda), who listens to their concerns and finally analyses that Chandu was a victim because of his gender and marginal identity.

The film then moves into a retrospective narrative that reveals how Chandu has been falsely implicated. It becomes clear that the case was fabricated, with manipulated evidence portraying Chandu as a rapist under POCSO and later as an accused in the rape of Meruvalli Jabilli (played by Sridevi). However, the reality is that Chandu and Jabilli were in a consensual romantic relationship, initiated by Jabilli herself. Their relationship becomes a question of honor for Jabilli’s uncle, Mangapathi (played by Sivaji), a man deeply rooted in patriarchal and feudal conservatism, who cannot tolerate a woman from his family choosing a partner from a lower social background—possibly a Dalit in the wider sociopolitical sense. However, the film deliberately avoids making Chandu’s caste identity explicit, which shows that casteism is not the only cause of atrocities. Another thing is that this silence is itself telling. At a time when growing awareness and resistance around caste injustice is rising, the director’s choice to obscure caste can be seen as a strategic decision to avoid controversy or censorship.

This so-called ‘honor’ becomes the justification for an elaborate conspiracy, which shows that girls are still treated as property by some elites. Mangapathi, with the help of money and muscle power, influences the police and legal authorities, falsely accuses Chandu, and ensures his persecution under the most sensitive sections of the law for women's security. The film vividly exposes the institutional collusion between class-dominated social hierarchies, patriarchal morality, and capitalist power structures that often function to suppress the poor, especially Dalits and women who defy societal norms.

The characters in the film symbolically embody the various layers of Indian society. Chandu, as a poor young man, clearly reflects the vulnerability and criminalization of the Dalit subject in a deeply legal order. Jabilli represents the dual oppression of women—first as victims of family control, and second, as unwilling tools in the hands of patriarchs who manipulate their lives for ego and control. Mangapathi stands as a representative of the conservative, feudal-capitalist elite class, driven not by justice or truth but by social prestige, control, and domination. In contrast, Teja emerges as a voice of conscience—a member of the intellectual middle class who still believes in justice and humanity and challenges the casteist and patriarchal taboos that define mainstream society.

Court – State vs. A Nobody is not merely a courtroom drama and love story; it is a societal statement. It interrogates the state’s role in reinforcing class hierarchies through legal mechanisms and questions whether justice is truly accessible to the marginalized. From a Dalitgiri standpoint, the film powerfully exposes how the judicial system, in alliance with feudal and capitalist interests, often protects the powerful while punishing the powerless. However, due to law and order, now honor killing is not easy—but now, killing through institutions has become easy for conservatives and patriarchs. It is a cinematic intervention that demands not only reflection but resistance—a reminder that until the most oppressed are truly heard, the promise of justice remains a lie in Indian society.

Instead of simply reinforcing conventional gender binaries, the film raises a compelling voice for the rights of men—particularly those from marginalized communities—who often face various kinds of humiliation due to the collaboration of legal institutions and dominant classes. Court – State vs. A Nobody challenges this notion by portraying how men, too, can face severe forms of injustice due to their gender identity, especially when intersecting with caste and class vulnerability. It raises a fundamental question about the concept of maturity regarding girls in legal definitions: how can a girl, who is 17 years and 364 days old, be considered a minor, and her consent for love affairs legally irrelevant, while the very next day she would be deemed an adult with full autonomy? This rigid cut-off ignores both psychological maturity and contextual realities. Due to this rigidity, many times youth face physical and mental harassment by corrupt minds.

The film subtly invokes the paradox: in both historical and contemporary contexts, we have many famous love stories, where romantic and marital relationships involved women under the age of eighteen. By highlighting this inconsistency, the film does not question child and women protection laws but rather points to how such laws can be misused against women also—as in this movie, Chandu’s mother, sister, and even Jabilli also faced trauma. The movie does not question the laws but analyzes how they are used against men from oppressed backgrounds—when love, caste, class, and patriarchy collide under the guise of legality. The movie also reveals a nexus among corrupt people of society, who use their social capital against the laws and individuals.

- The author is a political sociologist and expert on caste issues in Haryana.