Based on the Chasnala mining incident, Kaala Patthar is an action drama, which tells the story of Vijay Pal Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) who has been court-martialled by the Navy for negligence while on duty. A disgraced Vijay joins as a coal miner to forget his past. The coal mine is owned by Seth Dhanraj (Prem Chopra) who risks his worker's lives to generate coal despite his engineer Ravi Malhotra’s (Shashi Kapoor) warnings. The inevitable happens when floods break into the mines as Ravi and Vijay join hands to save the workers.