Days after Indrani Mukerjea told a CBI court in Mumbai that she wanted to divorce her husband and co-accused Peter Mukerjea, sources close to Peter told The Sunday Guardian that she or her legal team had not sent a single word to him on this. Not just that, Indrani has not even discussed her plan to divorce her husband with her own legal team yet. It is common knowledge that a divorce plea has to be filed in a family court, and that a CBI court has no jurisdiction whatsoever in the matter. No such plea has been filed in any family court in the city until now. “She has only orally pleaded to the CBI court, which has nothing to do with it,” said a source close to Peter Mukerjea. Both Peter and Indrani have been charged with the murder of Indrani’s young daughter Sheena Bora. The trial is slated to begin in the CBI court next month.
Last year, around the same time, Peter Mukerjea had thought of divorcing Indrani. He had expressed this desire to his lawyer a few months later. It has been almost a year since then, but he has not initiated any action on the matter. This week, Indrani, too, told the CBI court that she wanted to divorce Peter. But just like what Peter did last year, Indrani, too, has not bothered to tell Peter or to approach a family court with a divorce plea.
Peter is, apparently, clueless why Indrani made this announcement to a CBI court, which does not have any jurisdiction on the matter. Sources close to Peter told The Sunday Guardian, “For him, the marriage is over. He is not going to waste his time on Indrani anymore. The case is at a crucial juncture right now. He wants to focus completely on his defence. The fact that both of them are not working together for their defence, is enough clue about their relationship status,” he said, choosing to remain anonymous.
When contacted, Indrani’s lawyer, Gunjan Mangla told The Sunday Guardian, “There haven’t been any discussions on the issue yet. We haven’t discussed the grounds on which divorce will be sought, whether it will be amicable or not, whether she will approach Peter or not. We will have to comply with the procedure once she decides to file for divorce. She will then have to go for a counselling session. I think we will file for divorce by next month. I have no idea if it will be amicable (by mutual consent). The terms have not yet been discussed,” Mangla said.
Sources close to Indrani said that her perceived abandonment may have led her to the decision. When Indrani told the CBI court, the other two co-accused—Peter Mukerjea and Sanjeev Khanna (former husband)—were not present in the court room. They were being escorted back to prison.
“She has only orally pleaded to the court. We don’t know with what purpose she made that statement. Everybody is clueless as to why she said so in a CBI court. Peter or his legal team has not been sent any message till date on this. Also, we don’t know at what level of seriousness she has said this. She is used to making random pleas in court. In between, she told the court that she wanted to donate her organs,” a source close to Peter Mukerjea said.
Asked about Peter’s frame of mind, the source said, “Peter doesn’t want to waste his energy on Indrani anymore. For him, the marriage was over long ago. Especially after reading what the CBI has put in its charge sheet, he is completely shocked. He didn’t know many things about her past life. He never asked her about her past. And now, all these things have only upset him. Despite the surmise by the CBI that Peter knew everything about Indrani, even they have no concrete evidence to prove that he knew that Sheena was Indrani’s biological child. For him, this marriage is over.”
Asked if it meant that Peter would readily agree to an amicable divorce if Indrani approached him, the source refused to answer. “I haven’t yet had a word with him on that. I don’t know what he is thinking. Anyway, he has not yet been approached with any such thing by either Indrani or her lawyers,” he said.
SEPARATE PREPARATION FOR DEFENCE
Meanwhile, the trial in the matter is slated to begin on 1 February. The court framed charges against all the accused this week. Indrani Mukerjea, Peter Mukerjea and Indrani’s former husband Sanjeev Khanna have been charged with the murder of Sheena Bora. She was killed in April 2012. The trio has also been charged with destruction of evidence, criminal conspiracy, kidnapping and giving false information about an offence. All three of them have pleaded “not guilty”. Additionally, Indrani and Sanjeev have also been charged by the court of attempting to murder Sheena’s sibling Mikhail Bora.
In his order, the judge said, “I have also gone through statements of witnesses, particularly security person who was on duty during the relevant period at Marlow bungalow and that of Rahul Mukerjea (Peter Mukerjea’s son and Sheena’s fiancé), Kajal Sharma (Indrani’s assistant) and approver (driver) Shyamvar Rai. If the statements of above-named witnesses are read with that of statements of other witnesses available on record, there remains no doubt that material is available showing there are sufficient grounds for proceeding against all the accused for offences punishable under Section 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 364 (kidnapping), 302 (murder), 201(destruction of evidence), and 203 (giving false information in respect of an offence) of the Indian Penal Code.”
Though many charges on the three of them are common, the legal teams of Indrani and Peter have decided to fight for their defence separately. They have not yet sat together to strategise on the matter. “We don’t think we will sit together. Peter is not concerned with Indrani anymore. We will go ahead and make our own preparation for defence,” the source said. Contacted, Peter’s lawyer Mihir Gheewala said, “I have nothing to say. I have not yet spoken with Peter on this matter (of divorce).”
The process of trial will be a long drawn one. The court has fixed the date of 1 February for compliance. The prosecution will, on that date, submit an application of the list of documents it is going to rely on. The defence will be given a reasonable amount of time to admit or deny those documents. If the defence denies some documents, the prosecution will have to work on proving those documents. But if the defence admits some documents, the prosecution needn’t waste its time on proving them. Thereafter, a date will be fixed for evidence. The prosecution will also prepare a list of witnesses. Thereafter, the examination of witnesses will begin.