I am breaking the silence that surrounds our fight by going public about our story. While this will always be an – our story – the following is a version of it from my perspective. This gives context to our fight against the fake advocates involved in our cases. It’s a summary, an introduction, a speaking up if you will. I have reason to believe that there is an impending threat to my and my family’s life and liberty and the silence will not protect us.
Context
In early 2010 N.S.Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy, an advocate from the firm of G.A.Srikante Gowda, filed two criminal complaints under the NI Act against my mother – P.C.R.No.1553/2010 for M.S.Krishnappa and P.C.R.No.5718/2010 for Nagaraj S/o Doddanna in the court of the XIV Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Mayo Hall Bengaluru.
Unbeknown to us a “scam” had unraveled in this very court. The Presiding Officer, Dr.A.Gurumurthy had discovered a “parallel court” run by court officers, lawyers and banks in which they fraudulently filed [not entered into the system legally] fake cases, forged the signature of the Judge and issued fake non-bailable warrants. While the Judge took immediate action and submitted reports at a threat to his own life, he was immediately transferred out. What happened to all these fake cases is a matter of public record if one knows where to look.
In late 2010 N.S.Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy along with M.Amaranatha, a fake advocate, filed Original Suit No.964/2010 on behalf of Nagaraj S/o Doddanna and 4 others, in the court of the II Additional Senior Civil Judge, Bengaluru Rural District at Bengaluru seeking the possession of our home through the specific performance of a fabricated agreement of sale. They also fabricated an ad-interim order of temporary injunction against our home. This home is co-owned by me along with my 3 sisters and my mother. Yet the case filed fraudulently [not entered into the system legally] by them was only against my mother on the false claim that she was the sole owner of our home.
Disability and Illness – the frames of our Story
My mother at this very time, in early 2010, had been diagnosed with end stage colorectal cancer and was hospitalized. Our family was burdened with caregiving, fighting for her life and handling the financial and emotional stress that such a diagnosis brought. This was exactly 3 years after my father had passed away horribly from a chronic illness that had taken a traumatic toll on our lives.
These three cases – criminal and civil were filed when it was certain that my mother would die in the coming months as conveyed to us by medical professionals. She went on to survive her illness, becoming disabled and thus the criminal and civil proceedings carried on. It is 13 years and counting now.
My sister, Shilpa, has been her primary caregiver for this decade and counting.
In 2019 I became my mother’s power of attorney holder to handle all these cases and any matters arising from it. I started to represent her in person in 2020 in the criminal appellate proceedings and in the civil case. In 2020 I was diagnosed with uterine tumours and then Spondyloarthritis and in 2021 with Enthesitis. This basically means I live with constant pain and currently dynamic disability mostly impacting on my ability to walk.
Fake Advocates: the Architects of our Story
Surprisingly the architects of our story are not the Plaintiffs or Complainants but a bunch of fake advocates. In 2019 my sister, Shilpa, filed RTI requests with Karnataka State Bar Council for information on two of the lawyers who were involved in the institution of these fraudulent proceedings. Information received prima facie evidenced the fact that G.A.Srikante Gowda, a prominent High Court advocate, and M.Amaranatha were fraudulently enrolled on the advocate rolls and as such were fake advocates.
Thus started our 4 year complaint process that took us from the statutory bodies all the way up to the Supreme Court of India. While the Supreme Court of India in the case concerning M.Amaranatha sent it to the Bar Council of India, the case against G.A.Srikante Gowda was dismissed with a direction to approach the High Court of Karnataka. As of today these two fraudulently enrolled fake advocates continue to appear and work in the courts. There is nothing any one will do about it.
I recently wrote an open letter concerning the same to Mr.Justice Deepak Gupta, Chairman of the High Power Committee set up by the Supreme Court of India, to monitor the verification of advocates to weed out fake advocates.
Read here.
Our Fight for Legal Redressal
While our story so far has been a cataloguing of what has been done to us we also stood up to fight. When my sister and I discovered the fraud perpetrated in the criminal and civil proceedings we filed two Writ Petitions:
We filed Writ Petition No.19222/2022 in the High Court of Karnataka seeking the quashing of the entire criminal proceedings, on the ground inter alia of fraud, instituted on P.C.R.No.5718/2010 which included a judgment of conviction and was in appellate proceedings. We filed this in September 2022. A stay of proceedings was granted but that was vacated suo motu in October 2023 and is currently being assailed in a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court which we are having extreme difficulty in getting listed. The appellate court is on its way to delivering a judgment very soon.
In April of 2023 we filed Writ Petition No.9545/2023 seeking the quashing of the entire civil proceedings in O.S.No.964/2010 on the ground inter alia of fraud. Mr.Justice dismissed this writ in open court on 12.07.2023 and then revoked it in Chambers the same day in our absence. We are assailing this revoking without notice to us in a Special leave Petition which we are having extreme difficulty in getting listed. Meanwhile the same Mr.Justice issued directions to the trial court to expedite the trial and set 12th April 2024 as the expected time of disposal. Which means, going by the way we have been treated by the courts, we are very likely being made homeless.
How Does Our Story End?
Being an atypical, non-heteronormative, inter-species, disabled and gendered female (the humans) family we do understand and comprehend how this story should end. We now truly understand how the system works. Through silence. But what I also understand is that our fight will end in absolute annihilation if we allow the silence to continue. Writing our story publicly is a way of breaking silence. The silence has not protected us so far and in fact has been instrumentalised into more oppression.
Writing our story in public is also an invitation to the public to bear witness to what happens to non-heteronormative disabled women who access the courts for relief as litigants-in-person.
Most importantly it is an invitation for ally-ship, for solidarity.