In pre-independent India, Raghu (R. Muthuraman / Kaikala Satyanarayana) is a revolutionary who is disowned by his aristocratic father and is presumed dead while fleeing from the police. Ten years later, Raghu's wife is shot dead by a landlord attempting to rape her and her young boy shoots the landlord in retaliation and absconds. Several years later, the boy has grown up to be Ashok (Kamal), a rich, reputed philanthropist who runs "Parvathi Nilayam", a shelter and institute for orphaned destitute children, named after his mother. Unknown to all except his close friend and associate Mahesh is the fact that to support "Parvathi Nilayam", Ashok also masquerades as "Guru", an elusive criminal who carries out several heists and is being hunted by the police. Meanwhile, Ashok's grandfather has been raising an impostor, Ramesh (Mohan Babu) as his grandson, who has turned out to be felonious. Ashok meets and falls in love with a charming girl, Sujatha (Sridevi), the niece of a top police official, strives to win her affection and succeeds. Ashok, in the guise of Guru, also tangles with a notorious mob headed by an one-armed man, one of whose associates is Ramesh. Ashok also has a chance encounter with his lost father Raghu, who is now working as a professor, but Raghu conceals his identity to keep Ashok safe. In a shocking twist, Ashok finds out that the landlord whom he had murdered as a boy was none other than Sujatha's father and he starts rebuking Sujatha without revealing her the truth, leaving her heart-broken. Distraught and despondent, Ashok plans one last big heist to support "Parvathi Nilayam" permanently, hand it over to his friend Mahesh (Y. G. Mahendran) and seclude himself forever. Whether his plans succeed forms the rest of the story.