Zamaanat is the story of a man,who lost all hope and interest in life and how he rises from his own hopelessness to become the light of hope for others.
Kajol (Karisma Kapoor) is a girl born with silver spoon to very rich parents. She falls in love with a poor boy Suraj (Arshad Warsi), who is her college mate. But as always is the case, the path of lovers never runs smooth ...because her father wants her to marry his business partner's brother Sunil who has got all vices of a rich pampered boy. Suraj with all his good qualities is human and helpful to the fellowmen and is the hero of the college. When Sunil comes to know of the love affair of Kajol and Suraj, he plans to remove him from his path and succeeds in his attempt to get Suraj arrested for a murder of a girl student ... Tara ...during a college dance drama show. The efforts by Kajol to extricate Suraj from the murder charge proves futile as all the lawyers became helpless because the witness for prosecution were very strong. Helpless Kajol appeals to all lawyers to save the innocent Suraj. A sympathetic lawyer suggests to Kajol that the only person who can save Suraj from gallows is the famous advocate Shivshankar (Amitabh Bachchan). But unfortunately he has stopped attending court after he became blind in a car bomb explosion and is a almost inaccessible except to his close friend Dr. Madan.. Kajol tries to approach Shivshankar through Dr. Madan but is turned out by him inspite of Kajol's pleading to save her love. She accuses him of having no knowledge of love. Provoked and angered by this accusation, Shivshankar narrates his own unfulfilled love story and finally asks Kajol to leave the house. The last hope of engaging the noted advocate Shivshankar to save Suraj became futile and Suraj concludes that he is going to be hanged finally. But Kajol says it will not happen. Kajol and the entire college agitate before the court. Shivshankar does arrive at the last minute before the final count by the police ACP to order to fire at students.