Jan Nisar Akhtar Khan works as a Forest Officer, and lives with his wife Zakhiya and his daughter Neelu. One day while on duty he comes across some poachers who were cutting sandal wood trees illegally. When challenged, they retaliate, a struggle ensues, and one of them, Ram Gupta, is killed. Khan is charged with killing him, tried in Court, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. His shocked and devastated wife kills herself along with their daughter. Years later, an angry and embittered Khan is released from prison. One day he comes across another young man, Vijay Singh, and finds out that he is struggling with taking vengeance against three men who had traumatized and killed some of his family members, and decides to help him. It is then Khan finds out that Gupta is still alive and decides to kill him, quite dramatically in the same courtroom where he was convicted for his murder. Vijay also has a sister, Miss Durga Singh, who has joined Police department just to take revenge against those three men, but law-fully whereas her brother Vijay has decided to kill them one by one by taking law in his own hands as he like Khan does not believe in law. How he succeeds is the entertaining story of this movie.

• Rajinikanth .... Vijay Kumar Singh
• Hema Malini .... Inspector Durga Devi Singh/Shanti
• Reena Roy .... Meena Srivatsav
• Amitabh Bachchan .... Jan Nissar Akthar Khan (Extended special appearance)
• Madhavi .... Zakhiya Khan (special extended appearance)
• Pran .... Anthony D'Cruz
• Prem Chopra .... Amar Nath
• Danny Dengzongpa .... Akhbar Ali
• Amrish Puri .... Mr. Ram Gupta
• Madan Puri .... Jailor Gupta
• Om Shivpuri .... Police Commissioner K. B. Lal
• Dharmendra .... Truck Driver (cameo appearance)
• Asrani .... Constable Asrani
• Gautami

• The movie is a remake of the 1981 Tamil film Sattam Oru Iruttarai starring Vijayakanth and directed by S. A. Chandrasekhar.
• The Tamil film was also remade in Telugu as Chattaniki Kallu Levu starring Chiranjeevi, also directed by S. A. Chandrasekhar.
• The film was also remade in Kannada as Nyaya Ellide starring Shankar Nag, again directed by S. A. Chandrasekhar.
• The movie was also made in Malayalam, released in 1982 as Mattuvin Chattangale starring Ravikumar, Jayaprabha, Kamalahasan & Seema and directed by K.G. Rajashekaran.
• Both Pran and Prem Chopra have featured in a lot of Amitabh Bachchan films but in this one he does not have any scenes with both of them.
• Although Agneepath was the first film which had Amitabh Bachchan and Danny Denzongpa share screen space this was the first film they were casted together even though they had no scenes together.
• This is the only Amitabh Bachchan film where Pran has played a villain even though they did not have any scenes together.
• The first film to star the superstars Amitabh Bachchan and Rajnikanth together.
• Although Rajnikanth was in the main lead and Amitabh Bachchan was in a guest appearance, Bachchan stole the show and he was nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
• In the same year Amitabh Bachchan had a superhit with Coolie as well as winning accolades with his guest appearance in this film.
• The villain's names are Amar Akbar Anthony, playing homeage to the superhit film Amar Akbar Anthony, which Amitabh Bachchan played one of the lead characters.
• Amitabh's character Jan Nisar Akhtar was named after Javed Akhtar"s father.
• Pran returned to a villain role in the decade.