Cold Justice review: When the judge is the accused

Set in New Delhi, Cold Justice features ‘two of India’s best defence lawyers’, the dashing Akash Hingorani and his friend Vansh Diwan, who jointly take up the case for a woman accused of first-degree homicide. Shilpa Singh is not just ‘ remarkably beautiful’, with a ‘slender figure, high cheek bones, heart-shaped face and well-outlined lips,’ but also a judge in whose court Akash has appeared earlier and with whom he was, for a brief period, intimately involved. On learning that she has been charged with murder, he naturally rushes to her defence. Despite the damning evidence against her, Judge Shilpa admits only to a slight misjudgement – in being arrested at the scene of the crime, ‘kneeling next to the corpse with the knife I had pulled out of it in my hand.’ Though hers are the only fingerprints identified on the murder weapon, a ‘Solimo Stainless Steel Chef’s Knife’, she maintains that she is innocent. She further claims that she was lured to the rendezvous in Lodhi Garden by a phone call from an unidentified person who claimed to have vital evidence against a venal politician under trial in her court; when she arrived for the meeting, it was to find the caller stabbed to death.

While the situation looks bleak for her, the identity of the corpse remains a mystery. Apart from dignifying it with a moniker, Ashok Kumar, the police aren’t too interested in identification. Akash hires the services of Pentium, a private eye of menacing appearance, ungentlemanly language and no personal life who is ‘the king of Ws: Who? When? Where? What? Which? Why?’ Furthermore, Akash ropes in Chavi Nair, an investigative journalist to ‘shift the media focus’ away from his love affair with the judge.

The verdict

As in any thriller, two factors, a likeable protagonist and narrative tension, generate the suspense quotient. Dhamija writes in an easy, direct style and the basic premise of Cold Justice – a motiveless murder in which a sitting judge is the accused – is interesting. However, the characters, for the most part, are cardboard cut-outs. Akash grapples with personal dilemmas, such as ‘to be or not to be alone with Shilpa’ and whether he is or is not still in love with her. The corrupt politician Kailash Prasad belongs to a breed of criminals who are ‘mis-wired to believe that (they) aren’t doing anything wrong.’ The prosecution lawyer, Ravi Nanda is ‘one of the most fearsome, the most respected and the most sought-after prosecutors.’ Among these one-dimensional portrayals, Anshuman Durve, the judge chosen to preside over the trial, stands out as the most compelling. Indeed, it is in his court that the narration livens up. Having two judges in the same courtroom, one judging and the other being judged, creates not just an extraordinary trial but also a quaint confusion as to who is to be called ‘Judge’ and who is ‘Your Honour’. With these conundrums, the question of whether the accused was an innocent bystander or a coldblooded killer is reduced to a moot point that eventually gets resolved once the identity of the corpse is revealed.

A light, moderately entertaining read.