Celina Jaitly has been away from the limelight for a few years now and one had thought the actress quit Bollywood as she was happily married and living abroad. However, to everyone’s shock, Celina revealed that she has filed a domestic violence case against her husband, Austrian businessman Peter Haag on Tuesday. Her lawyer explained that the divorce petition cites emotional and verbal abuse, physical violence, manipulation, coercion, and financial control. Alongside this, Celina is also pursuing several other legal matters — assistance for her brother who is ‘illegally detained’ in the UAE, a property-related civil case in Mumbai, and the divorce proceedings that Peter has initiated in Austria.However, her biggest battle at the moment is “the custody of her children”. Celina’s laywer Niharika Karanjawala old News18, “She’s fighting it out in the case going on in the Austrian court. Her children are her foremost concern. We’ve asked for the custody of her children and access to them in the domestic case too. Fortunately, two days back, the Austrian court, in the divorce proceedings, has allowed her access to them for one hour a day, telephonically.”“She’s able to communicate with them daily. Prior to this, Peter had cut off contact for a while between her and the children,” Niharika adds. When asked about any possibility of infidelity, the lawyer clarified, “While there’s no infidelity that she knows of during the marriage, she did hear from his sister shortly after the first set of twins were born. She heard that though he had portrayed himself to be single at the time they were dating, he was actually in a live-in relationship with another lady.”According to Niharika, the marriage was troubled from the very beginning. “The marriage has been abusive from the beginning. But since 2017, especially, three things happened that drove Celina into a rather deep depression.” During her pregnancy with her second set of twins, she lost her father, then one of her newborns passed away due to hypoplastic left heart dysplasia, and a few months later, her mother died of an aggressive form of cancer.Financial matters, the lawyer added, were another point of constant strain. “He made her give him all her credit and debit cards so that he was in-charge financially. He was using all of her savings to fund their life. She couldn’t ask him about his salaries from his jobs because he would fly into a rage. When they got into a conversation, she learnt that he had sold off the property they bought together in Vienna last year without informing her. He kept telling her that there’s no money and they got into a fight.”Niharika claims Peter has not been employed for several years and also persuaded Celina to divert rental income from her Mumbai property to his personal account. Their movements over the years, she said, were dictated by his career — first Mumbai, then Dubai, then Singapore, back to Dubai, and finally a secluded Alpine village in Austria where he allegedly kept her isolated. “At first, they cohabitated in Mumbai at her house. Thereafter, it was Dubai for his job. They all shifted there to support his career… After this gift deed was executed, he gave up his job and shifted them to a small alpine village in Austria. There, he kept her very isolated,” she states.“At this point, she had nobody. Her parents had passed away and her children were young. She barely spoke the language there. And it became very difficult for her to do anything without him,” Niharika adds. She further revealed, “Peter kept all of her documentation and passport with him. One day, while looking for a quiet place to speak to her lawyer, Celina found the place where he had hidden the documents. Thereafter, with the help of a neighbour, she rushed back to India and moved the courts here for justice.”Over the years, Celina reportedly returned to India multiple times, but each time, Peter convinced her to go back to Austria. She had even consulted an Austrian attorney to understand her legal options. This time, however, she travelled to India in the second week of October and approached the team at Karanjawala & Co in early November to formally begin the legal battle. Go to Source
