The fundamental tenet upon which writer-director Pavan Bhat based his second movie, Yuddhakaanda Chapter 2, was that justice delayed is justice denied. He pitched the movie to actor Krishna Ajai Rao, who ultimately served as the film's producer. The movie had a slow but continuous increase in foot traffic after it was released in theaters on April 18, ultimately playing in theaters for 50 days before making its way to OTT. As of June 20, 2025, the movie is available on Amazon Prime Video. Among other things, OTTplay spoke with Pavan about the movie, particularly the creative license used in depicting court procedures. (Spoilers ahead)

You had almost revealed the entire plot of the movie when the trailer for Yuddhakaanda Chapter 2 was released. It was clear that Ajai's character would bring Archana Jois' Niveditha the justice she deserved. The omission was in the how. Was that a deliberate choice to get the audience ready?

Indeed, it was a deliberate choice to get the audience ready for what's ahead. The second chapter of Yuddhakaanda is about how he fights for her freedom, not about the what, so we wanted viewers to go into theaters with a clear idea of what it is, nothing more or less.

You've mentioned that events like the Nirbhaya case and the length of time it takes for legal procedures to be completed provided the inspiration for the story. How much study was put into writing the screenplay for Yuddhakaanda Chapter 2?

I'm not a lawyer, but I did some preliminary study on the IPC sections I planned to employ in the tale, and then I told a few lawyers about them. They gave us a lot of ideas, and we included them into the screenplay. The final script that went into production took us about six to eight months to complete following the initial draught. We spent a lot of time making sure everything was perfect because we didn't want anything to change when we went on floors.

One of the things that struck me while seeing the film, and you brought up the time you spent doing pre-production research, was a significant mistake on your part in failing to both name the young child and include a public revelation of the terrible abuse she experienced, rather than keeping it in camera. The Telugu film Court correctly identified this problem...

We made the deliberate choice to include the scene in issue, in which a doctor discusses the child's genital mutilation in a public courtroom, in order to elicit a response from Archana's character that was essential to the storyline. The mother's reaction to this revelation gave us that cinematic advantage. In addition, there is a significant difference in observing the response of 5 individuals as opposed to 50. We were aiming for that disbelief and shock from 50 faces. However, it is my understanding that an in-camera procedure is only necessary when all parties involved request it, but I could be mistaken on this. I understand your point and the delicacy of the situation, but none of our conversations with legal professionals brought it up. From our current perspective, it does appear to be a mistake that we should take into consideration in our future endeavors.

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