The Bombay high court, on Tuesday, admitted the petition filed by Madhuri Mafatlal and her son Ajay, seeking the quashing of the first information report filed on the basis of a dowry-harassment complaint lodged by her daughter-in-law Sheetal. The dispute between Sheetal and the Mafatlal family started in July 2011, when the matriarch Madhuri and her granddaughter Marushka alleged that the socialite had stolen more than 35 paintings worth crores of rupees along with some silver articles from their Altamount Road residence. In response to the complaint of theft,

Sheetal approached the Gamdevi police alleging physical and mental harassment by her husband, Atulya, Madhuri and other members of the family. Consequently, the police registered three FIRs against the family members on July 16, July 30 and August 4, 2011.

In their petition, Madhuri and Ajay have stated that Sheetal had harassed them physically and mentally by filing several civil and criminal cases, including one under the dowry law.

In October 2011, the court had appointed a mediator and directed the family members to try to settle the dispute amicably. After a year, Atulya, his son Varun, daughter Marushka and sister Kunti Shah settled their dispute with Sheetal. On November 19, 2011, the division bench of justice Abhay Oka and justice SS Shinde had directed the Gamdevi police to continue their investigation on the complaint, but had restrained them from filing a charge sheet against the mother-son duo without prior permission from the court.

The mother-son duo has alleged that the recent tussle and subsequent public settlement between Sheetal and Atulya was “part of a larger criminal conspiracy so that other family members of deceased Yogindra Mafatlal could be dragged into uncalled and unwarranted controversies and litigation of criminal law.”