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 attacksIn 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 authors of the letter said that “Although the plaintiff may be content in going through the appeals channels”, they do not feel the same way. They then lay out their demand: for Justice Patel to travel outside of India, release a video on Youtube recanting the verdict and saying that the decision was made under pressure, tell the Bombay Bar Association to also upload this video, and give interviews to journalists reiterating these claims. The letter concludes that the judge has until the end of September (2025) to meet these demands.The letter also claimed responsibility for the break-in at Aditi’s house, and came with an SD card with a video of the home invasion as evidence.Days later, Justice Patel’s wife received a copy of the same letter in Mumbai. The police in Mumbai filed a non-cognisable complaint based on the letter on September 9.The September deadline came and went; Justice Patel said he “obviously did not – and will not –” comply with the demands.On April 22, Aditi was assaulted near her home in London after dropping her child off at school. She was repeatedly punched by a person in a hoodie and mask, Justice Patel told The Wire, until she fell to the ground. The attacker then went on to kick her until neighbours heard the commotion and gathered to protect her, at which point the attacker fled. Aditi had her phone and wallet on her, but nothing was taken.The most recent threat, a letter received on June 5 at Justice Patel’s daughter’s home in a London suburb, contains a death threat for the judge and his family. It claims that the retired judge has been given “ample warning” and that the “Next step is cremation. Yours and your family.” The only way to cancel the “contract”, the threat letter continues, is to “Doing what you were told in the last letter.”The letter too was accompanied by an SD card which, according to the letter, “shows that happens because you choose not to comply”. Justice Patel told The Wire that the SD card has been handed over to the police and the family is not yet aware of what it contains, as they did not want to put it into their personal devices.There is an “explicit connection”, he said, between the threats in the letters received and the physical attacks. The Metropolitan Police told The Wire that the Hertfordshire Police would be best placed to answer queries about this case. The Wire has written to them to ask about the status of the case, and this article will be updated when a response is received.The judgmentTwo days before his retirement, Justice Patel passed an order on April 23, 2024 on a longstanding case on who the real spiritual head of the Dawoodi Bohra community is. The case had been pending before the court for 10 years.Justice Patel deemed Mufaddal Saifuddin to be the rightful spiritual heir of the community, dismissing the challenge filed by his uncle Khuzaima Qutbuddin after the death of Saifuddin’s father Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin in 2014. Qutbuddin passed away during the course of the hearing, and the case was taken up by his son Taher Fakhruddin. After the verdict, Fakhruddin filed an appeal before a division bench of the Bombay high court, which remains pending.During the hearings, Justice Patel told The Wire, both parties acted with great decency and cordiality. The bench was only judging the legal issues involved, and not the individuals. “There was no semblance of anything untoward,” he added.The Fakhruddin faction has condemned the attacks against Justice Patel, according to Hindustan Times. “Syedna Taher Fakhruddin Saheb unequivocally condemns any such threats and violence…These acts are clearly meant to malign us and attempt to derail the appeal,” Fakruddin’s brother Aziz Bhaisaheb Qutbuddin, who also serves as his director of communications, said.This situation, Justice Patel, raises critical questions about India’s judicial system. After the most recent letter which contains the death threat, he has written to the Acting Chief Justice of the Bombay high court and Chief Justice of India to apprise them of what has happened. “How can the hundreds of judges across high courts work with this kind of fear and intimidation?” he asked.