The Sony LIV series, Court Kacheri is for any bourgeoisie kid who’s been appalled by the overwhelming career dynamics—the kind of “parampara, pratistha & anushasan” family orientation that propelled them to bump their heads into the dead-ends of something they never wanted to do in the first place, so that brought in a correction: “parampara, pratistha & procrastination.”
Because what else do you do when you’re stuck living someone else’s dream in a house that smells of ambition and burnt toast?
Court Kacheri, the sharp TVF series, written by Arunabh Kumar and Puneet Batra, doesn’t go for the grand rebellion. It’s about that very Indian kind of slow suffocation, the kind where you don’t even realise, you’re being smothered until you’re 30, single, clinging to a law degree you never wanted, and wondering if it’s too late to become a pastry chef in Prague.
Param (Ashish Verma), third-generation lawyer by blood, who’s an accidental misfit by design. Param’s entire existence is a bureaucratic burden dressed in black coat formalities. His father Harish (Pavan Malhotra) is the textbook Indian patriarch, charismatic in court, coldly efficient at home, morally flexible enough to make the Constitution look like a menu. Param, meanwhile, walks through life like a man allergic to legacy. Even his hair looks like it’s trying to escape.
And that’s the charm of the series. There’s no hero. No villain. Just people. Some doing what they were told, others doing what they could, and a few, like Param, not really doing anything at all.
Director Ruchir Arun doesn’t go for spectacle. He lets the silences stretch, the spaces breathe, and the characters stew in their own slow-burn existential dread. In that sense, Court Kacheri feels less like a drama and more like a mirror held up to every disillusioned urban kid who’s ever Googled “how to quit family business without causing drama.”
Ashish Verma is pitch-perfect as the quietly crumbling Param. There’s no dramatic monologue, no rebellious high, just a constant, low-level ache. Pavan Malhotra is stunning as ever, playing Harish with the confidence of a man who’s been winning arguments since the womb. Puneet Batra’s Suraj adds another layer, a sidekick trying to be a main character in his own life, fumbling but trying nonetheless.
The show even manages to weave in a courtroom subplot about a divorce case and a determined young lawyer that serves more as metaphor than narrative core. Justice, here, isn’t blind. It’s just disinterested.
And yet, despite the gloom, Court Kacheri is oddly funny. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but that dry, tired humour of a group chat where everyone’s stuck in the same rut but still cracking jokes. The kind of humour that makes “procrastination” feel like both a coping mechanism and a political act.
Enveloped in five tight episodes, the show feels like home.
IWMBuzz rates it 3.5/5 stars.
