Hc Nixes Firs Filed By Man Against 91-year-old Father, Legal News, ET LegalWorld – Legal Firms

Filing an FIR against family members over a property dispute brings disrepute to the family and such disputes are best solved through civil litigation, the Gujarat high court has said. The court’s observation was made in response to two criminal complaints filed by a man against his nonagenarian father and other family members. The court quashed the FIRs filed by the son, saying that they “fall in the rarest of rare case”, and an investigation cannot be permitted in a pure civil dispute.

The case involved Mihir Patel who has filed two FIRs against his father Harshadbhai, 91, and three other members of his uncle’s family. Patel has alleged cheating, breach of trust, forgery, and abetment over the partition and sale of his ancestral property in Ghatlodia. He had earlier filed an FIR with the Naranpura police station in 2008, but the complaint was quashed by the HC.

The Patel family has been in multiple litigations over the property dispute. In 2016-17, Patel filed two FIRs with the Vadaj police station. The father and his brother’s family approached the HC to get the FIRs quashed, arguing that the complainant did not disclose civil litigations in the complaint, and the FIRs were not tenable in this civil dispute.

The son contended that his family members have wrongfully dealt in disputed properties, which still are Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) properties, in which he has a share. After hearing the case on November 15, Justice Gita Gopi quashed both the FIRs with the observation, “All the applicants in both the petitions are family members. The complainant as such cannot raise any dispute by way of filing FIR.” The court added: “The civil rights have to be claimed by way of a civil suit; lodging of criminal prosecution leads to serious consequences of accused having to face arrest, and further such FIRs would bring disrepute to the family members in the society.”