MUMBAI: A 17-year marriage, with a unique estrangement by and behind bars, ended with a mutual consent divorce on Thursday for

and husband

, both accused in a murder case.

Co-accused in the alleged 2012 murder of Sheena Bora, the couple were arrested in 2015 and have been residing in separate Mumbai jails since.

Peter, a former electronic media head honcho, is 63, and Indrani is 16 years younger. He is due to turn 64 in November.

Peter reached 45 minutes later from another jail

On Thursday, principal judge SS Sawant of family court at Bandra in Mumbai pronounced and granted them divorce by mutual consent.

A mutual consent divorce plea has a six-month cooling-off period, at the end of which the family court once again assesses if the consent exists and then grants a decree, ensuring compliance of the consent terms.

Indrani was the first to arrive. She reached by noon with four women police escorts. It was their last court date together as husband and wife.

The two had filed a joint plea for divorce through their lawyer Edith Dey last October.

A joint plea for divorce is based on a mutual voluntary statement that the marriage cannot succeed or continue due to irreconcilable differences.

Mumbai police had arrested her in August 2015 and filed a chargesheet against her, her driver—who later turned an approver and state witness—and her former husband Sanjeev Khanna in the murder case alleging that Sheena was her biological daughter from her first partner. Indrani has said Sheena’s her sister.

The day the police chargesheeted the trio in November 2015, it also arrested Peter and charged him too with murder and conspiracy in the case.

They spent three years since, separated by jail yards and cells in the same neighbourhood. She is in Byculla women’s jail and he in Arthur Road prison. Their common meeting ground has been the regular visits to trial court for the ongoing murder trial before special trial Judge JC Jaddale.

This April, Peter underwent a bypass surgery for complete blockage of one major artery and major blockages in a few others. As a result, six months cooling-off period passed with him in post operative cardiac rehabilitation. While his heart healed, the marriage solemnized in November 2002, his second, now stands broken.

He arrived in court a slimmer self, a wide belt strapped around below his chest area, a white cloth belt with Velcro for his trousers — leather belts are banned in jails. She was barefoot, dressed with a yellow coloured dupatta on a white kameez on slim white jeans. The yellow is the Navaratri colour for the day and she is observing a fast, hence without shoes. Her hair tied neatly with a yellow grip and a red and yellow bindi adorning her forehead.

The consent terms include flats in Mumbai, Goa, properties in Marbella, Spain and England, bank accounts, jewellery, watches, tiffany and Bristol Blue lamps and Picasso prints.

The compliance required her share of Goa flat to be given to daughter Vidhi and some slight amendments were made to ensure effective execution and affidavits were filed - the entire process took a few hours on Thursday. The last joint counselling sessions for both lasted about an hour with the principal marriage counsellor.

On the court walls, outside the courtroom, handwritten posters on yellow paper said: ‘There is no love in marriage. Love is in people and people put love in marriage.’ And another said, ‘No relationship is all sunshine, but two people can share one umbrella and survive the storm together.' The Mukerjeas, now no longer joint by a wedding knot, will, however, still continue to be in another court together to face the criminal trial.

Advocate Edith Dey said later, “They stand finally divorced. The court perused all documents to see the compliance of consent term and granted divorce on being satisfied that it was a fit case for divorce. “

“It was an amicable divorce with both cooperating during the proceedings,” she added.

Peter’s advocate Sagar Kumar who stood in for advocate Sushmita Nair on Thursday later said, “a joint application was moved by both the parties to modify few consent terms and after almost a year they have been granted divorce”.