The Bombay High Court has dismissed a suit challenging Syedna Muffadal Saifuddin’s position as the spiritual head of the Dawoodi Bohra community. The suit was filed over a decade ago by Syedna Taher Fakhruddin, who claimed that he should be the rightful leader of the community.
Justice Gautam S Patel passed the judgment in the dispute, stating that he has kept the verdict “as neutral as possible for personalities involved” and decided the issue “on proof and not faith”.
The Dawoodi Bohras are a religious denomination among Shia Muslims and traditionally a community of traders and entrepreneurs. The top religious leader of the community is known as the Dai-al-Mutlaq.
In 2014, the 52nd Dai-al-Mutlaq, Syedna Mohammad Burhanuddin, passed away, and his son, Mufaddal Saifuddin, succeeded him. This was challenged by Syedna’s half-brother, Khuzaima Qutbuddin, in the Bombay High Court. After Qutbuddin died in 2016, his son, Syedna Taher Fakhruddin, became the plaintiff and wanted to be declared the leader of the Dawoodi Bohras by the High Court.
Fakhruddin claimed that his father had conferred the nass or the conferment of succession upon him and that he should, therefore, be declared the Dai. However, Justice Patel held that the plaintiff did not prove that a valid nass was conferred or pronounced on him as stated in the plaint. He also held that the plaintiff could not prove that nass once conferred cannot be retracted, revoked, changed, or superseded.
The Court added that as the plaintiff’s claim was not proved, the issue of whether the defendant had proved that a valid nass was conferred on him by the 52nd Dai did not arise.
In his suit filed in 2014, the original plaintiff, Qutbuddin, had sought from the High Court to restrain the late Syedna’s son from acting as the Dai, alleging that Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin had taken over the leadership role in a “fraudulent manner”.
Fakhruddin, through Senior Advocate Anand Desai, had claimed that his father conferred the nass upon him and thus he should be declared the Dai.
Representing Saifuddin, Senior Advocates Iqbal Chagla, Janak Dwarkadas, and Fredun Devitre argued that the nass of 1965 lacked witnesses and could not be accepted. They argued that as per established and prevalent doctrines of the Dawoodi Bohra faith, nass could be changed and revoked.
Saifuddin had also contended that even if nass had been conferred on the original plaintiff in 1965, as per the doctrinal belief of the community, only the last nass would be valid, therefore he was rightfully conferred to be Syedna.
