Frames per Second: Banality of Law

Chaitanya Tamhane's Court has eerie echoes for our contemporary times

Early in Chaitanya Tamhane-directed Court (2014), lawyer Vinay Vora (Vivek Gomber) describes a modus operandi of the police he has observed in several cases where innocent people are framed. A Muslim man is arrested on suspicion of being involved in a terror plot. His bail is denied, and he is kept in jail for several months or years as his case drags on. Finally, the accused is released for the paucity of evidence. But he is arrested almost immediately on a completely different case. Even as he describes this to an audience at the Mumbai Press Club, Vora is getting