In 1978, Shah Bano, an elderly Muslim woman from Indore, filed a petition seeking maintenance from her estranged husband—what began as a private plea became one of India’s most defining legal battles on justice and faith. Read this review of the film Haq by Arnab Banerjee.

Suparn S. Varma’s film Haq, inspired by the historic Shah Bano case, examines the complex intersection of law, religion, and gender justice in India. Featuring Yami Gautam, Emraan Hashmi, and Sheeba Chadha, the film revisits the landmark 1985 Supreme Court judgment that redefined women’s rights within Muslim personal law. Through evocative storytelling and restrained direction, Haq explores how faith and justice collide in the pursuit of dignity, equality, and conscience.

Director: Suparn S. Varma

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Yami Gautam, Danish Hussain, Sheeba Chadha

Cinematography: Pratham Mehta

Music: Vishal Mishra

Duration: 136 minutes

Rating: ★★★½ 

In 1978, Shah Bano, an elderly Muslim woman from Indore, filed a petition seeking maintenance that her estranged husband, Mohammed Ahmad Khan, had abruptly ceased paying. What began as a private plea for sustenance evolved into one of India’s most seminal legal battles. The litigation culminated in a historic 1985 Supreme Court judgment—Mohd. Ahmad Khan v. Shah Bano Begum—which upheld a divorced Muslim woman’s right to maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

The verdict, however, ignited a storm of controversy, for it was perceived by many as an intrusion into the sanctum of Muslim personal law. The government’s subsequent legislative intervention, restricting such maintenance to the brief period of iddat, and transferring the burden thereafter to relatives or the Waqf Board, only deepened the fissures between secularism and faith, gender and orthodoxy.

Suparn S. Varma’s Haq revisits this epochal moment through a fictionalised lens, transforming it into a stirring courtroom drama that probes the intersection of law, religion, and a woman’s unyielding quest for dignity.

Faith, Law, and Patriarchy Collide

Set in the late 1970s, the film chronicles the trials of Shazia Bano (Yami Gautam) and Abbas Khan (Emraan Hashmi), a couple who initially appear to embody conjugal harmony. Their domestic felicity, however, shatters when Abbas departs for Murree, ostensibly to resolve a legal dispute over ancestral property. On his belated return, Shazia is devastated to find him accompanied by a second wife, Saira (Vartika Singh). Though Shazia initially attempts to endure this humiliation in silence, her spirit ultimately revolts when Abbas denies her even a modest allowance for sustenance.

Abbas, an accomplished lawyer well-versed in constitutional intricacies yet indifferent to the finer spiritual precepts of his faith, contrasts sharply with Shazia—a devout, unlettered daughter of a small-town maulvi (Danish Hussain). Her decision to seek justice through the courts, rather than through sharia-based arbitration, provokes outrage within her conservative milieu. The case becomes not merely a battle between husband and wife, but a symbolic confrontation between progressive legal reform and entrenched patriarchal orthodoxy.

Abbas, abetted by his formidable legal adversary Indu (Sheeba Chadha), frames Shazia’s plea as an assault on Islamic law, thus transforming a simple claim for maintenance into a cultural and constitutional flashpoint.

Cinema of Conscience and Compassion

Haq, though inspired by the Shah Bano case, transcends its historical origins to become a broader meditation on gender justice, faith, and the law’s moral responsibility. It neither demonises nor glorifies; rather, it holds a mirror to a society grappling with its own contradictions. In revisiting an episode that once altered India’s political landscape and reignited debates on the Uniform Civil Code, the film reminds us that the pursuit of haq—one’s rightful due—is not a matter of creed but of conscience.

Varma’s direction is commendably restrained. Eschewing melodrama, he allows the moral gravity of the narrative to speak for itself. The film’s 136-minute runtime is marked by clarity of purpose and an admirable refusal to sensationalise. In revisiting the Shah Bano moment, Varma also revisits a time when India itself stood at a crossroads—when questions of secularism, personal law, and women’s rights collided in the public square. The Supreme Court’s judgment in 1985 upheld not merely a woman’s legal entitlement, but the principle that compassion and justice must prevail over dogma.

The film has other qualities too: Pratham Mehta’s cinematography imbues the proceedings with gravitas, while Vishal Mishra’s music adds emotional texture without lapsing into sentimentality. Yami Gautam delivers a nuanced performance of quiet resilience, her Shazia embodying both the pain and the pride of a woman who dares to defy social diktats.

Emraan Hashmi, in a rare departure from his usual repertoire, portrays Abbas with persuasive conviction—his arrogance and moral conflict finely balanced. Among the supporting cast, Danish Hussain lends authenticity, Sheeba Chadha offers steely intelligence, and Vartika Singh contributes poignancy in a difficult role.

In an age of shrill courtroom spectacles and facile polemics, Haq is compelling, and distinguishes itself through sincerity, balance, and intellectual poise. It is a dignified cinematic effort that proves a film need not raise its voice to make itself heard.