Ex-HC judge Gautam Patel faces threats over 2024 Dawoodi Bohra verdict

Retired Bombay High Court judge Gautam Shirish Patel and his family have been facing a sustained campaign of threats and violence in India and the United Kingdom since August over his 2024 judgement in the Dawoodi Bohra succession dispute, he told Scroll on Monday.

The most recent incident was reported on Friday, when his daughter Aditi Patel received an anonymous letter threatening the “cremation of you and your family” for failing to comply with directions contained in earlier threats.

On April 22, she was physically assaulted by a masked attacker when she was returning home after dropping her child at school in London. She suffered a bloodied nose in the incident.

The threats are linked to Gautam Patel’s April 22, 2024, judgement in the Dawoodi Bohra succession case. Patel had held that Mufaddal Saifuddin was the rightful leader of the sect of Shia Muslims and dismissed a petition challenging his leadership by the faction led by Taher Fakhruddin.

The letter received by his daughter on Friday claimed that a “gang” had been paid to kill the family and stated that the attack could be called off “by doing what you were told in the last letter”.

It was sent from a fake London address and bore a German stamp, the Hindustan Times reported.

A memory card attached to the letter was seized by Hertfordshire Police. The family decided not to open it on their computer, fearing that it could contain malware or be used to take control of their electronic device.

Since August 2025, he and his family members in Mumbai and London have allegedly received repeated threats demanding that he “recant”, or disavow, the judgement through a YouTube video.

Previous threats and attacks

The intimidation campaign reportedly began in August 2025 with an attempted break-in at his daughter’s home in London. This was followed by three identical letters sent to Aditi Patel and her husband in London, and to the retired judge’s wife Malashri Patel in Mumbai.

“We are a powerful guild of the DB [Dawoodi Bohra] community members interested in justice being served for our community,” the Hindustan Times quoted one of the letters as saying. “We have employed a very capable and dangerous syndicate who carried out the warning in London.”

Reacting to the latest threat, Gautam Patel told Scroll that the letter amounted to an “outright death threat” and questioned what such attacks meant for the judiciary.

He described the developments as “outrageous” and said that it was “absolutely impossible” to recant a judicial decision through a YouTube video.

“I’m not succumbing to these threats,” he added.

The retired judge also said: “I didn’t ask them to come to court. They could have protested on the streets, but instead you came to my court, which means ‘you may very much lose’.”

He further said that the attacks in London demonstrated how the perpetrators understood how the “jurisdictional divide [between the two countries] can be leveraged”.

The succession dispute

The Dawoodi Bohras are a sect of Shia Muslims, originally from Gujarat. While about five lakh live in India, the rest are spread out across the world.

The death of Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, the 52nd “dai” or spiritual leader of the community, in January 2014 at the age of 103, was followed by a succession dispute.

While Saifuddin, the second son of Burhanuddin, is said to have been publicly named as the next leader by his father in 2011, his claim had been disputed by the late syedna’s half-brother, Khuzaima Qutbuddin, who had been Burhanuddin’s second-in-command since 1965.

Although the majority of the community pledged allegiance to Saifuddin, Qutbuddin approached the Bombay High Court challenging his claim to the position.

After a nine-year trial, Gautam Patel had reserved his judgement in the matter in April 2023.

On April 22, 2024, he ruled that Saifuddin was the rightful leader of the Dawoodi Bohra community and dismissed the suit, holding that the challenger had failed to prove his appointment as syedna.

Qutbuddin had died in 2016 while evidence was still being recorded. His son Taher Fakhruddin was substituted as the plaintiff, Bar and Bench reported.

The Fakhruddin faction has appealed the ruling before a division bench of the High Court. The appeal is pending.

Inputs from Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: Already rocked by a succession battle, Bohras face up to new leader’s views on women