Ex-Bombay HC judge files complaint over threat in UK for 2024 verdict

Mumbai: Days after going public about a threat letter from unidentified persons being delivered to his daughter’s London residence, retired Bombay high court judge Gautam Patel on Sunday lodged a complaint with Gamdevi police in south Mumbai over it.A senior police officer said the complaint states that the anonymous letter threatened him and his family with dire consequences. Justice Patel had received it while he was in the UK with his daughter, said police sources. They said the letter, sent to him by post, asked him to release a video saying he gave a 2024 judgment under pressure.Justice Patel had told TOI on a call from London last week that the letter was in response to a judgment passed by him in 2024.

The case, which is pending appeal, had sought to establish the succession and name of the Syedna, the spiritual leader of the Dawoodi Bohra community.The death threat was allegedly delivered on June 5 to the home of Justice Patel’s daughter weeks after she was physically assaulted on a street in London. Over 10 months, his family has received several anonymous threat letters, including a 2025 letter which accused him of having delivered the judgment “fraudulently” and under pressure.

On April 23, 2024, HC had closed the Syedna successor question. Justice Patel had dismissed a suit filed in 2014 by Syedna Khuzaima Qutbuddin to be declared the 53rd Dai (formal designation given to spiritual leader of the Bohra community) based on a private nass of 1965 as the spiritual leader. HC held that the nass conferred by the 52nd Dai, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, on his son, Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, was valid.After Justice Patel went public about the death threats, CJI Surya Kant had taken up the issue with the Indian high commission in London during an official visit to the UK. The CJI had sought protection for the former judge and his family in the UK, and had also asked the acting Chief Justice of Bombay HC, Ravindra Vithalrao Ghuge, to take the appropriate judicial and administrative steps.