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New Delhi: Justice Gautam S. Patel, who retired from the Bombay high court in April 2024, and his family have been threatened and physically attacked on at least five occasions – four in London and one in Mumbai – in connection with a judgment he delivered deciding a succession matter in the Dawoodi Bohra community.

The threats and attacks have been claimed by a “powerful guild of DB community members”, and began more than a year after the judgment was delivered. The group has said it wants Justice Patel to release a Youtube video in which he recants the judgment – something the judge calls “inconceivable”. “How do you recant a judgment? This is not a thing known in law,” he told The Wire. Since then, his daughter and wife have received threat letters, his daughter’s home has been broken into, and she has been physically attacked on the street in London and had her nose broken.

The threats and attacks

In the middle of August 2025, Justice Patel’s daughter Aditi, who lives in a London suburb with her family, had her home broken into. A police complaint was filed at the time, and it was treated like any other break in.

A few weeks later, however, Aditi received a letter addressed to her father, saying that he had delivered a “fraudulent and faulty” judgment in the Dawoodi Bohra case because of “pressures” and “incentives”.  The........

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