Batti Gul Meter Chalu(2018)

2h 41m
- Drama

Release Date: Sep 21, 2018 | Limited

The life of three friends takes a tragic turn due to an inflated electricity bill, which leads to a courtroom drama and social awakening.

Releases

Original Release | Sep 21, 2018

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Box Office Results

Results

Opening Weekend US & Canada:
$153,847
Total US & Canada:
$249,539
Total International
$5,514,097
Total Worldwide:
$5,763,636

Current Showtimes

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(U.S. Only)

Director & Top Cast

Shree Narayan Singh
Director

Shahid Kapoor
Sushil Kumar Pant

Shraddha Kapoor
Lalita Nautiyal

Divyendu Sharma
Sundar Mohan Tripathi

Yami Gautam
Advocate Gulnaar Rizvi

Sushmita Mukherjee
Judge

Samir Soni

Sanjay Baduriya

Ashrut Jain

Manish Kumar (Lawyer)

Anastasiya Ador

Ariyana

Kashish Arora

Reporter

Shriyam Bhagnani

Baby

Mukesh S. Bhatt

Upreti

Sukhwinder Chahal

Pankay Bahugana, SPTL official

Rajendra Chawla

Janak Khanduri

Ashish Gole

Lawyer

Pankaj Gupta

Chandar ( Janak Khanduri's Attendent At Electrical Office )

Shivam Gupta

Sukesh

Sharib Hashmi

Vikas

Other Details

Country of Origin: India

Language: Hindi

Summaries

Plot Summary

Sushil Kumar "SK" Pant (Shahid Kapoor), Lalita "Nauti" Nautiyal (Shraddha Kapoor), and Sundar Mohan Tripathi (Divyendu Sharma) are childhood friends. S.K is a hypocrite, mean lawyer making money from out of court settlements. Nauti is an over-the-top fashion designer who thinks highly of herself. Nauti aspires to present her work at the Lakme Fashion week. Nauti runs a boutique in town. Beena Nautiyal, Lalita's mother Beena (Supriya Pilgaonkar) & Lalita's grandmother Amma (Farida Jalal) love her greatly.The friends stay in a town (near Rishikesh) in the state of Uttarakhand. The state is beset by long power cuts. Tripathi had just received license to set up a printing press in the town. Tripathi drives a Scooty, while SK drives a large and scary Bullet. Amma believes that a person needs to be street smart like SK to run a business and feels Tripathi might struggle with his venture. SK's father DN Pant (Sudhir Pandey) runs a tourist lodge in the town. Sunder lives with his father Murarilal (Atul Srivastava). Sunder plans to use his printing press to print medicine packaging.SK notices an advertisement in the paper by a travel agency owned by Deendayal (Brijendra Kalra), who promises "fun" during his tours. SK brings a family of 4 to Deendayal's office and claims Rs 1.5 Lakhs as compensation as the family did not have "fun". SK threatens to go to district, state or even national forums to force Deendayal to settle the case. In another instance he sues Pandhar Prasad (Shrikant Verma) for advertising that his nutritional products lead to height growth in kids. Pandhar had also made misleading claims about 30% carbohydrates and 10% proteins in his products. As kids were involved, Pandhar was forced to settle.Nauti's relatives start looking for a groom for her. That makes SK and Tripathi realize that they both love Nauti and takes turns in dating her. SK sees Nauti and Tripathi kissing each other and that breaks SK's heart. SK starts taunting and avoiding them. SK soon starts to roam around with foreign girls on his bike to make Nauti jealous. Nauti went with Tripathi as in her mind Tripathi was a sincere guy, while SK was a borderline crook, who used his law degree to con people out of their money.Things were breezy until Tripathi opens a small-town Printing Press. Within months, he is charged with an Inflated electricity bill of Rs 1.5 Lakhs, which escalates to Rs 54 Lakhs in the following months. The electricity company had installed a 5 KV line (which had a higher rate slab), which the factory did not need and plus half the time the factory was on generator as electricity supply was erratic at best despite the factory being in an industrial area.He approaches Janak Khanduri (Rajendra Chawla), complaint officer of private electricity distributor SPTL, but to no avail. Tripathi and Nauti go to SK for help, but SK refuses to help them as he is still very angry at both. SK says that since childhood he has done all of Tripathi's work, and he knew that Tripathi is not capable of running a business. He tells Tripathi to close his factory and take the insurance money to cut his losses.Tripathi's business comes to a standstill when electricity is cut for non-payment of dues. All his savings go into running generators as the factory goes into losses. Tripathi has to take bank loans, mortgaging his father's house, to keep the factory running. He approaches the ombudsman, but with no relief. Tripathi's confidence is shaken and while dropping Nauti home, he asks why she chose her. Later that night, Tripathi commits suicide. Tripathi's insurance policy is not paid as suicide cases are not covered in it. The bank demands its loan back from his parents, as it was guaranteed against his father's house.S.K is set aback by the events and has a change of heart, and he regrets not helping Tripathi at the right time. He decides to fight out against SPTL, a Privatized Electricity Company responsible for the Inflated Bills. When the ombudsman against rejects to hear Tripathi's case, SK posts a You Tube video inviting all complaints against SPTL. Thousands of people turn up to share their inflated bills with SK. Unknown to SK, Tripathi survived his suicide attempt and is alive in a local hospital. When he recovers, he finds SK fighting for people's rights & decides to stay low.SK has Advocate Gulnaar Rizvi (Yami Gautam) representing SPTL Owner Sanjay Bhaduriya (Samir Soni) as his opponent. SK and Gulnaar present their opening arguments with recap the sequence of events that led to Tripathi's suicide. Gulnaar also proves in court that the reason Tripathi committed suicide was not because of the bill, but because of the tension due to the love triangle between Nauti, SK and Tripathi and SK's refusal to help Tripathi.SK calls Sanjay Bhaduria to the stand and alleges that SPTL violated rules by not having enough meters in stock and which is why a check meter was installed at Tripathi's SME company. Sanjay alleges that the company is running in losses due to electricity theft. SK shows a video exposing an attempt by Sanjay's trusted employee to buy off SK for Rs 25 Lakhs. He also exposes that SPTL is charging frivolous fees from its customers for profitability but had issues in changing a Rs 1000 electricity meter due to which Tripathi lost his life.On the day of the judgment, Tripathi reveals himself to the court and tells the truth that he attempted suicide because of the mental harassment due to the Rs 54 Lakhs bill. SK goes on a rant against the lack of progress in Uttarakhand due to greedy corporations like SPTL. In judgment, the court orders Tripathi for 6 months imprisonment and Rs 40,000 fine for insurance fraud. It orders Rs 54 Lakhs bill as void and Rs 10 Lakhs as compensation for mental harassment. It suspends SPTL's license and Rs 50,000 as compensation for every complainant against SPTL.

Storyline

S.K, Nauti, and Tripathi are childhood friends. S.K is a hypocrite, mean lawyer making money from out of court settlements. Nauti is an over the top fashion designer who thinks highly of herself. Things were breezy until Tripathi opens a small town Printing Press. Within months, he is charged with an Inflated electricity bill of 1.5 Lakhs, which escalates to 54 Lakhs in the following months. With no where to go and complain, Tripathi commits suicide. S.K is set aback by the events and has a change of heart. He decides to fight out against SPTL , a Privatised Electricity Company responsible for the Inflated Bills. He has Advocate Gulnaar representing SPTL as his opponent.. Whether or not he is able to sue the company forms the rest of the story. SK,Nauti and Tripathi are best friends. SK lawyer cons people Nauti a fashion designer and Tripathi runs a factory .Nauti tells SK and Tripathi that in coming days she will decide between them whom she wants to marry.SK sees Tripathi and Nauti getting closer to in jealously starts to avoid them and and also leaves the town for sometime.During the same time Tripathi's factory starts running into losses due to huge electricity bill send by power company.Tripathi is left helpless as nobody is helping him even SK backs out.Few days later while SK is returning to the town he finds that Tripathi's bike is been taken out from lake and he is assumed to be dead.SK feels guilty of not helping his friend during his bad phase and decides to put a case on the power company and give justice to his friend. — alex.mjacko@gmail.com