Gracy Singh, Jimmy Sheirgill, Arshad Warsi, Rohini Hattangadi and Boman Irani play other roles.

Munna vows to become a doctor to get back at Asthana but unknowingly ends up enrolling into his college with the help of home surgeon Dr. Rustom Pavri.

Upon becoming a student, Munna falls back into his ways by enforcing his regime of "common-sense treatment", directly challenging Asthana's conventional opinions to get under his skin.

Despite the school's emphasis on mechanical, cartesian, impersonal, and often bureaucratic relationships between doctors and patients, Munna, who constantly seeks to impose a more empathetic and almost holistic regimen around himself, clashes with professors over their lack of empathy towards patients, especially those who are deemed incurable by conventional medicine.

His behavior is well-received by the hospital staff and patients, who are able to see the good-natured intent behind his anti-establishment actions.

Asthana, perceiving this as chaos, is unable to stop it and resorts to laughter therapy to deal with his stress.

Munna simultaneously develops a friendly relationship with Dr. Suman, who works at the hospital, unaware that she is "Chinki", an ignorance she hilariously exploits to a point where he gives up on marriage plans with "Chinki" to exact revenge on Asthana after Suman sends her doctor friend to masquerade, and uses old-fashioned kindness and love to 'cure' many patients at the hospital, including Karan, a suicidal youngster he met on his first day of college, and Dr. Pavri's father, who at one point fell ill and short of a desire to live.

He even thanks an underappreciated janitor and arranges to bring a stripper inside the patient ward to cheer up Zaheer, a man dying from stomach cancer who he befriends in the process.

However, after he recovers, the hospital staff, patients and students stand in Asthana's way and refuse to let Munna leave.

Later that night, Zaheer dies; still in shock, Munna gives up at a point during the test and leaves; in the process, Anand Banerjee, a paraplegic patient who has been brain-dead for the last 12 years, comes back to life.

As the film concludes, Anand, restored to normal mental health, narrates the story to a few children at the hospital as he is about to leave for Kolkata.

[9] After Hirani chose to make into a film, during the scripting stage, he wanted Anil Kapoor to play the lead role.

Vivek Oberoi was considered for the role, but in the end Sanjay Dutt took the role as Munna, which ultimately gave him an image make over and helped change the public perception of the controversial superstar;[16] his real-life father Sunil Dutt returned to the silver screen after 10 years to play Munna's father.

The producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, however, denies there being a resemblance, and says that he had not watched the film before the release of Munna Bhai.

According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 1,000,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's one of the highest-selling.

At the 50th Filmfare Awards, it received the Best Film (Critics), Best Screenplay, the Best Dialogue, and Best Comedian (for Warsi) in addition to four other nominations.