A mother-daughter duo, who moved the Karnataka High Court with a petition seeking quashing of a First Information Report and case pending in a Magistrate court have been fined Rs one lakh for concealing facts about it.?

The two had filed the petition through a general power-of-attorney (GPA) contending that they were in the United Kingdom and could not travel due to COVID restrictions at the time.?

However, they had suppressed the fact that they had returned to India and even travelled to Bengaluru to obtain bail from the Magistrate court.?The complainant in the case is Syed Ali Hindustani, from Bengaluru who married Samantha Christina Delfina Willis on June 6, 2021.?

It is alleged that the wife left him within five days of marriage to her parents' home in Kolkata with all the jewels belonging to the husband’s mother allegedly for a photo shoot. She along with her mother Shakila Willis then flew to the UK. They returned in November 2021 seeking annulment of the marriage.?

It is alleged that while in the UK, they forced Hindustani to part with Rs 7.5 crore to buy a property. Based on the husband's complaint a case was registered for cheating, criminal intimidation and other charges.?

The mother and daughter obtained bail from the Magistrate and then approached the High Court for quashing of the case.?Dismissing their petition, the HC said, "If there is no candid disclosure of relevant and material facts or the petitioners are guilty of misleading the Court, the petition is to be dismissed at the threshold without considering the merit of the claim."

The cost has to be paid to the High Court Legal Services Authority within four weeks the court ordered, observing that, "There can be no doubt that the petitioners are guilty of approaching this Court with unclean hands and such petitions should be thrown to the winds by imposition of exemplary costs."

The Court did not consider the merits of the case as it held that filing a writ petition in amalgamation with Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code seeking quashing of the case in the lower court was not even maintainable.?

Such a petition was filed through a GPA holder who was not even aware of the facts of the case, the court said.?Secondly, the petition suffered from suppression of material facts entailing its dismissal.?

Due to these two points, the "merits of the matter need not be gone into, as both the points act as a threshold bar for entertaining the petition and the doors of this Court cannot be considered to be open or even ajar to the petitioners, but they are closed."

(With PTI inputs)