Power of Communication to be studied by famous movie - Ek Ruka Hua Faisla

1. Case Study – Ek Ruka Hua Faisla
Movie brief:
Ek Ruka Hua Faisla is a movie about 19 year old boy who was a suspect for murder of his father.
There was a committee of 12 people assigned to decide whether boy was culprit or not. They had
to reach a consensus, unanimously, regarding the boy’s fate – guilty or not guilty. When the movie
begins it seems like the committee is already sure about the decision- guilty. However, once the
voting takes place the plot thickens. Only one juror is unconvinced of the boy’s involvement in
the crime resulting in a difference in opinion and further discussion on the case. The following
discussion brings out different angles to the story along with highlighting the characteristic traits
of the committee member and their power of communication over the discussion.
Power of Communication:
The Power of Communication is the effect a person creates by asking the right questions and
practicing good listening skills to understand the subject well. The questions get the
communication going and encourages the other party to talk, to share information with you and
according you can negotiate your view points on it. This helps to confirm your knowledge about
the subject plot and also to know more things which are missing or we don’t know.
Characteristics of 12 Jurors in the movie:
In this movie, we observe the entire decision making process and way the people communicate
with each other, where each individual had different perception and different behavior in
particular situation, their personal opinion leads them to one wrong decision first but later on
with just one leading, convincing, neutral and practical individual, they were able to think on the
other side of the case and finally they reached to right conclusion.
Juror 1 (Deepak Kejriwal): He acts as a co-ordinator throught the film. He is the facilitator and
mediator of the discussion and is hence expected to be someone who guides the discussion forward
and resolute the conflicts. He is social as he tried to bring everybody to the table and maintained
good relationship with everyone.
Juror 2 (Amitabh Srivastav): He is relatively new to such situation and thus has certain
inhibitions. He is shy by nature who is easily convinced and influenced during stressed moments.
His part in the movie is affronted by the Juror #3. But finally, he speaks up about some evidence
that bothered him.
Juror 3 (Pankaj Kapoor): He is the arrogant, criticizing and was the shouting member of the
group. Though he plays the role of the most divisive character who is falsely convinced that the
accused is the murderer; his dissentious stand was because, his only son deserted him, so this
painful relationship with his son caused anger toward all young people, thereby influencing his
vote.

2. Juror 4 (S. M. Zaheer): He is a smart guy who based his decisions on hardcore facts and
demonstrates an active constructive personality. He is very patient and calm throughout the process
and bases his decisions on pure logic. He showed signs of thinker and
controller in his decision making style. He faced hindrance of the evidence trap because once Juror
8 had presented him the other side of coin, and there were evidences supporting him, he
immediately went into a thoughtful state realizing his blunder in ignoring the details and then
shifted his decision in the favor of Juror 8.
Juror 5 (Subhash Udghate): He is the person who belongs the same slum as the accused. He
becomes very defensive and does not react well to others prejudice. Since he comes from a similar
background, he is in a better position to understand the accused situations and empathize with him.
Other than that, he was acting like a follower and going with the flow of majority.
Juror 6 (Hemant Mishra): He plays a secondary role in the movie, with no substantial
contributions. He also demonstrates a passive constructive personality. This
characterdoes not shy away from voicing his opinions and likes to maintain decorum during the
discussions. He is traditional by thinking. That is, he showed respect to elders, others and their
personal life.
Juror 7 (M. K. Raina): He very effortlessly demonstrates the role of a self-centered person who
is more worried about his own comforts and leisure than being fair and detailed. He shows least
concern about the case even though a life was dependent on it. He show no regard to protocols or
justice and does not actively support the decision making process.
Juror 8 (K. K. Raina): He is the voice of reason, and plays the most crucial role. At the
beginning, he is the only member of the jury who votes ‘not guilty' and with stands all the
pressure from the other jury members. By saying that it's not easy for him sentence a boy to
death without even discussing the facts he opens the other jury member's minds to the possibility
that the accused may not be guilty. He is calm, cool, and collected, and is probably one of
the few jury members who fully understand his role as a jury. Along with this, he approaches the
trial logically, calmly and competently by scrutinizing each and every fact discussed during the
trial, so that they are doubly sure that they haven’t left any loop-hole during their decision
making process.
Juror 9 (Anu Kapoor): He is the old and wise juror who proves to be open to difference in
opinions and supports them. He brings along with him loads of wisdom and experience which
eventually helps the jury members to come to aconclusion regarding a faulty witness.
Juror 10 (Subbiraj): He is the most actively destructive juror having his original opinions and
prejudices which are biased in nature. His community biases lead to many verbal conflicts resulting
in an aggressive approach. He showed a lot of arrogance in his style was trying to influence others
in the favor of punishing the guilty without going over the detailed facts. He was also very
impatient in his decision making.

3. Juror 11 (Shailendra Goel): He is one of the characters who show an adult ego state while the
decision making process. He was pacifying other members of the jury and calming the
environment. His decision style is again a mix of a charismatic and a follower. He was one of the
members who were ready with the decision almost immediately when the discussion started, but
later on when logic and facts were presented, he changed sides.
Juror 12 (Aziz Qureshi): He portrays the role of the most indifferent character. He was behaving
as if he is just passing his time and is least interested in the decision making process. He displays
a typical child ego state who is excited but not serious about the task assigned. He again shows
a mix of charismatic and a follower in his decision making style and was a victim of the status quo
bias like most other characters in this movie.
Power of Communication effect: Take away from the movie
There is overall change on the total group after having the long the discussion on the subject. The
power of asking various questions and coming to down to common view made them think about
various analytics.
We learn that whenever a number of people from different background, mindset, and culture come
together then conflicts are bound to happen. In similar circumstances the role of power and politics
comes into play when people with a dominant personality try to influence others and make them
think and do things according to them. So in such cases proper attention has to be taken so that the
discussion takes place in an unbiased and non-influential way and everybody gets a fair chance to
participate and express his/her opinion.
Also whenever some decisions are taken as a team then the focus should be on taking the
viewpoints of everybody and collectively coming to a decision rather than focusing on expressing
only individual viewpoints and influencing others as well.
We also learn that every decision should be based on reasonable evidence and it can be dangerous
to rush to conclusions. In the movie, most of the Jury members were initially in a hurry to shut the
case and pronounce the accused guilty even when they know it’s a matter of someone’s life. Only
Mr. Raina stands against such a decision and demands that the jury should give appropriate time
to the issue and have a healthy discussion on the entire case.
We take below points while we have to make any decision as a team/ group:
 Equal and fair chance to voice their opinions
 A welcoming and supporting environment
 Experience trust, acceptance and understanding within the team
 New learnings i.e. a chance to pick up skills and attitudes from others
 Good insight to expand self-knowledge
 Share other people’s experiences- concerns, difficulties and hopes