Update: 04 Apr 2025

Actress Hansika Motwani and her parent Jyoti Motwani initiated a petition with the Bombay High Court on Thursday, requesting that the First Information Report (FIR) against them be dismissed on cruelty charges under Section 498-A at the request of her spouse’s sister Muskan James.

The notice was sent by a division bench consisting of Justices Sarang Kotwal and Shriram Modak, who also postponed the hearing until July 3.
The bench has been requested by Hansika and her mother to dismiss the FIR that Muskan, who wed her sibling Prashant Motwani in December 2020, filed against them in December 2024. December 2022 marked the couple’s separation.

The Indian Penal Code (IPC) charges the actor and her mother with cruelty (section 498-A), criminal intimidation (section 506), malicious insult (section 504), and inflicting pain (section 323).

In February 2025, a Mumbai sessions court accorded preliminary release to the actress and her mother after they were arrested in the case. In an attempt to suppress the FIR, they have now appealed the High Court.

Through attorneys Adnan Shaikh and Drishti Khurana, respectively, Hansika and Jyoti submitted their writ petitions. Hansika has argued in her plea that she is only being involved in this dispute because she is Muskan’s sister-in-law and to put stress on the Motwani family to reach a financial compensation for their separation.

The accusations made against the petitioners are unfounded, motivated, and stem from domestic conflicts that have been inflated in order to qualify them for criminal prosecution. The petitioners, Hansika and her mom, were only implicated because they are connected to Prashant, and they had nothing to do with in the claimed marital problems between Muskan and her husband. According to the plea, the FIR seems to be a punitive action meant to coerce the Motwani family into paying an agreement in the existing marital lawsuit.

Furthermore, the petition asserts that Muskan only brought the current FIR in opposition to Hansika and Jyoti after she declined to consent to a consensual divorce. This demonstrates how the criminal procedures are being abused as leverage in the continuing marital lawsuit, the actor has said.