Indrani, Peter file for divorce by mutual consent
The couple had agreed to the terms of settlement for dividing all their assets and bank accounts.
Mumbai: Indrani and Peter Mukerjea, jailed in the Sheena Bora murder case, filed for divorce in a family court in the city on Tuesday. As per the legal procedure prescribed for consensual divorce, Principal Judge Shailaja Sawant referred the couple to a counsellor. After the couple told the counsellor that they do not want to reconsider their decision to separate, the judge scheduled the final hearing for March 25, 2019, at the end of the mandatory six-month cooling-off period.
In their petition, Indrani and Peter Mukerjea said that they had agreed to the terms of settlement regarding the division of their assets and bank accounts in India and abroad, as well as valuables such as jewellery and luxury watches. Although the petition does not give a value of the real estate, it states that apartments in Mumbai’s Worli, Goa, Bristol and London (UK) and Marabella (Spain) will be divided between them along with their office space in Lower Parel. The couple had married in 2002.
Indrani (46), the former co-owner of a TV channel has been lodged in Byculla women’s jail since her arrest in 2015. She had served Peter a legal notice for divorce in April this year, on the grounds that their marriage had “irretrievably broken down”.
Sheena Bora, Indrani’s daughter from an earlier relationship, was allegedly murdered in April 2012. Indrani was arrested in the case in August 2015 after her driver spilled the beans about the crime.
The Central Bureau of Investigation later arrested Peter for allegedly being part of the conspiracy. According to investigators, financial dispute as well as Indrani's opposition to Sheena’s relationship with Peter’s son from his previous marriage, led to the murder.