American novelist Brian Garfield wrote a popular novel'Death Wish' in 1972 which was adapted for a Hollywood movie of the same title and also for a TV series. The theme of this story contains the activities of somebody who has lost a lot in the hands of the criminals and thus developed a death wish in his heart. He wants to die but instead of dying in the normal way, he wants to die in his bid to eliminate as many criminals as he can. This story has inspired many novels and movies in India. Aakhiri Adaalat(1988) also seems to have been inspired by Death Wish only because it shows a group of public-spirited people who are aggrieved in their personal lives because of the criminals roaming about the society. Fostering death wish in their hearts, such people now fearlessly go after the criminals and eliminate them, terming it as the justice of their court(Adaalat).
Aakhiri Adaalat(the final court) starts with a gang of hardcore criminals who have taken the city to ransom by their law-breaking activities. This gang consists of Girija Shankar(Paresh Rawal), Shiv Saran(Gulshan Grover), Bansidhar(Sarat Saxena), Mahaveer Shah(Girdhar), Raghunathan(Roopesh Kumar) etc. alongwith their henchmen. Honest and dutiful cop Inspector Amar(Vinod Khanna) is after them but his style of functioning is not liked by his seniors like the Deputy Superintendent of Police(Shafi Inaamdaar) and the Commissioner of Police(Sudhir Dalvi). The DSP himself is sold out in the hands of these criminals and helps them in different ways. Amar lives with his widow mother(Sushama Seth). Nitin Sinha(Jackie Shroff) is Amar's fast friend who lives with his widow mother Mrs. Sinha(Seema Dev). Nitin loves Nisha(Sonam) who is the daughter of Barrister Shankar Sharma(Vinod Mehra) who apparently does not like the affair of his daughter with Nitin. Amar and Barrister Sharma are also not on good terms because the criminals caught by Amar with a lot of effort are acquitted by the court due to the efforts of Barrister Sharma who pleads for them. To keep a vigil on Amar as well as to restrain his enthusiasm, the DSP gives him an assistant in the form of Sub-Inspector Reema(Dimple). However within a span of time, Amar and Reema fall in love.
Suddenly a killing spree starts in the city against the criminals. The killer wears a specific leather jacket and a specific helmet covering his whole face and he arrives on a motorbike to take on the outlaws. Many criminals including some of the high profile gangsters mentioned above are killed by the biker. Since the identity of the killer is not known, it is also not clear whether it is the same person every time or just the get-up is the same used by different people on different occasions. Amar alongwith Reema is after this mysterious murderer but all his efforts go in vain. And the tragedy is that Amar himself comes under the suspicion of being this mysterious helmet-wearing biker who kills the criminals. First Reema suspects him because a similar leather jacket and a similar helmet is found in a closet of his bedroom, then after knowing the fact from Reema, Amar's mother also accuses him to be this mysterious killer. A disheartened and demoralized Amar who now feels as completely lonely in the world, leaves his own house. He gets suspended also by his department.
To wash the stain of being the killer himself from his name, Amar investigates the things in his personal capacity and gradually some new and startling facts come to the fore. Amar comes to know now that the killer is not a single individual but there is a full-fledged organization populated by public-spirited people who hate crime and criminals. Different members of this group wear the publicized get-up of the killer, use the bikes and eliminate the criminals because they are disenchanted with the reigning judicial system which appears more to be in favour of the criminals than the law-abiding citizens. The reason behind this disenchantment and their rebellious attitude towards the society and the law is that they had not got justice from the same when they were aggrieved.They call their organization their own court in which they themselves play the roles of judge, jury and executioner together for the criminals who deserve the strictest punishment as per their philosophy of justice. They have lost their desire to live and it's the death wish in their hearts that has made them daredevil.
On the other side, now only one gangster - Girija Shankar is left among his group because all others have been killed by the jacket and helmet wearing biker. He decides to use the myth of the helmet-wearing biker-killer now well-set in the public-psyche to his advantage. He starts killing the innocents while wearing that get-up and riding a bike, thus maligning the image of that mysterious-killer in public. Now the members of this unusual society have to prove that they do not kill innocents and some oversmart criminal is killing the innocents while hiding his true identity behind the get-up known to be belonging to them. They seek Amar's help in this regard though Amar considers it his duty to arrest them and handover to the law. In the end, the villain, i.e., Girija Shankar is caught by Amar with the help of the corrupt DSP(who has had a change of heart). However what the court established by the system and the law of the land decides for this self-designated court, remains a question which the filmmaker does not answer.
The corrupt and ineffective judicial system of India in which the proceedings move at a snail's pace with no hope for justice for the victims, does not recognize such parallel courts or clandestine societies running a crusade against crime. But they may be welcome by the aggrieved and victimized underdog if they do emerge in India also the way they had emerged in many other countries long long back.
