HC stops lawyer after 115th case against wife

Mumbai: A lawyer who dragged his estranged wife, an assistant public prosecutor, to court in a record 115 cases has been stopped in his tracks. A Bombay high court division bench of Justices B H Marlapalle and U D Salvi recently passed an interim order restraining Naziruddin Nizamuddin Kazi from launching any more legal proceedings without the court’s permission.
The HC admitted the petition on an application filed by Maharashtra advocate general Ravi Kadam to declare Kazi a vexatious litigant. “We are satisfied that the issues raised in this application filed by the advocate general require consideration,” the bench said, scheduling the matter for final hearing in June 2011, when the court will decide whether to declare Kazi a “vexatious litigant”.
Under the Maharashtra Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Act, the HC can brand a person a vexatious litigant if it is convinced he has “habitually and without any reasonable ground instituted proceedings, civil or criminal, in any court, whether against the same person or against different persons”. Such a litigant then has to obtain the permission of the high court or the district judge to file a fresh case or continue with existing cases filed by him.