The phrase "under various pretexts" is correct and commonly used in written English.
It refers to someone using different reasons or excuses to justify their actions. Example: The politician was accused of embezzling funds under various pretexts, including a charity event and a business investment.
Realizing that they had no chance of winning a majority, they procrastinated under various pretexts but eventually allowed the elections to proceed.
First oil and gas companies, then arms factories, airplane manufacturing plants, cars companies and other enterprises were seized by the state, under various pretexts.
Under various pretexts, they bought me an exceptional number of toys and games in the months following that Christmas, trying to distract me from what they saw as a traumatic obsession with the toy cement mixer and its "magic".
For many years, Israeli-Palestinians have been prevented - under various pretexts - from bringing their spouses (Palestinians from the occupied territories) into Israel, or being able to get them citizenship.
The extended term ends in November, but her release even then is uncertain in a country where the military wields near-absolute power, and where Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained under various pretexts for most of the past 20 years.
Pakistan's history is abundantly full of prolonged chapters of political instability, authoritarian military rule and flagrant dismissal of elected governments under various pretexts.
Even today, this right is still being suppressed, under various different pretexts.
Starting in 1931, the Japanese used various pretexts to bring all of Manchuria under military occupation and to open it to settlers from the Japanese countryside.
After all, Binyamin Netanyahu, the new prime minister, spent much of his previous term in the job (1996-99) wriggling out of Israel's obligations under what was known as the Oslo peace process on various pretexts, to gratify his rightist-religious supporters.
They were standing under a big microphone doing the audio track for an interview about Hezbollah's various pretexts for refusing to relinquish its weapons, one of the most volatile issues in the Middle East.
If the Russians want to continue the argument over missile defense, they can offer various pretexts.
