Former cricketer Shikhar Dhawan is in the headlines these days. This veteran opener of Team India recently got married for the second time. Dhawan married Sophie Shine of Ireland, which was also attended by some players of Team India. After this happy moment, Dhawan has received another good and big relief news. A family court in Delhi has directed Dhawan’s ex-wife to return 8,94,397 Australian dollars i.e. about ₹ 5.7 crore. This amount was received as interim property settlement from the sale of Australian property.
Court gave order to Ayesha Mukherjee
Judge Devendra Kumar Garg of Delhi’s Patiala House Court gave this big decision in favor of Shikhar Dhawan. In his judgment, Judge Garg said that all the documents prepared for financial settlement between Dhawan and his ex-wife Ayesha Mukherjee are invalid as they were prepared under threat, extortion, deceit and fraud. The court also directed Ayesha Mukherjee to pay 9% annual interest on the amount ever since Shikhar Dhawan filed the case.
The court also said that the Australian court has no jurisdiction to hear the matrimonial disputes between Dhawan and his ex-wife. Apart from this, the court stopped Ayesha Mukherjee from implementing the anti-suit injunction and order dated February 2, 2024 obtained from the Australian court. Through this order, the Australian court divided the global asset pool of the two parties, which included Dhawan’s properties and financial assets in India. The wife was given an additional 15% of the tangible asset pool. In addition to Mukherjee owning assets worth AUD 1.17 million, he was given a further AUD 2.5 million to be paid by Dhawan. The court had also directed the wife to transfer a property and made a provision to face consequences if she did not agree.
When and how did the matter start?
Dhawan and Ayesha Mukherjee got married in 2012. Ayesha is an Australian citizen of Indian origin and Dhawan also started living in Australia during their relationship. During this period, both of them had also bought a house there. But after the tension in 2021, both of them started living separately and then in 2023 the court approved their divorce. Since then, cases are going on in the court between Shikhar and Ayesha regarding Australian property as well as son Zorawar.
According to Dhawan, shortly after their marriage, his wife started threatening him that she would spread fabricated, defamatory and false stories against him and ruin his reputation and cricket career. Dhawan told the court that he bought the properties with his own money, but his wife forced him to register the properties in their joint names.