Devyani Khobragade returns to India, but no one gets justice

Sections of the Indian establishment are already playing up Devyani Khobragade’s return to India as a victory. Her father and former bureaucrat, Uttam Khobragade has been quoted as saying that justice was inevitable if all of India comes together. The big question is: has justice really been done? Devyani claims she is completely innocent, that Sangeeta Richards, the maid in question, was a liar looking to settle in the US. Has justice been done then, since Devyani is returning to India without her kids and her husband who is an American citizen, and faces the terrible prospect of arrest if she returns to the US without diplomatic immunity, even if it is 20 or 40 years later? What’s almost ignored in this victory dance is Devyani was asked to leave by the US. Also perhaps ignored is that charges haven’t been dropped but that Devyani was indicted by a federal grand jury in Manhattan. According to The New York Times , the indictment charges her with visa fraud and making false statements in connection with her treatment of her former maid, Sangeeta Richards, who US prosecutors said had been overworked and unpaid by Devyani. In addition the indictment also accused Devyani and others of trying to “silence and intimidate the victim and her family and lie to Indian authorities and courts.” [caption id=“attachment_1333763” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Khobragade should be in India soon. AP[/caption] And as the NYT notes, the decision by US Attorney for the southern district of New York Preet Bharara also seems to indicate that negotiations to resolve the case through a plea bargain have broken down. In a plea bargain, which is how most criminal cases in the US are resolved, Devyani might have agreed to plead guilty to a particular charge in return for leniency from the prosecutor. Uttam Khobragade has said that the choice offered by the US prosecutor was of paying damages to the maid in return for dropping of all charges. “We are proud Indians. We as a family would not like to touch the soil of the country which treats human beings in such an inhuman way…such utter violation of human rights, utter violation of Geneva Conventions.” However, that claim is quite different from that made in an Indian Express piece which said that the Preet Bharara wanted Devyani to plead guilty and was willing to waive her prison term while recognising it as a criminal offence. The Indian Express further said that Devyani was open to this with one additional condition–that any criminal record from the case would not impede her from entering the US in the future, but the Indian Ministry of External Affairs had differences with Devyani on this and put its foot down saying India would not accept any deal framing the case as a criminal offence as that could hurt similar cases and complicate matters for other Indian diplomats in the US. Clearly, the Indian government’s priority wasn’t about whether Devyani could return to the US and her personal priorities. And as soon as India refused the US request to waive her immunity once the US accepted her UN accreditation, the US asked her to leave. Refusing the UN accreditation would have been very difficult, as an US official has said, “would be almost without precedent…except in the event of national security risks, including espionage,” The Washington Post says. The Washington Post quotes US Attorney Bharara as explaining that the immunity that came from the UN accreditation was not retroactive, and the charges against would be “pending until such time as she can be brought to court to face them” in a non-immune status. The article also quotes an unnamed US official as clearly saying that this would seem to limit any future plans Devyani may have to visit or reside in the US. “Her husband and children are U.S. citizens, so she wants to be here, one would assume,” the US official is quoted as saying. So, where’s the justice? Uttam Khobragade has claimed that they as a family would not like to touch US soil, but surely that is unfair to a family where the husband and even her children are US citizens. Clearly, the flames over l’ affaire Devyani have been doused by cooler minds in India’s foreign policy establishment and the US State Department, and while it may seem that India and Devyani got what they wanted, nothing could be further from the truth. But why? One, it had become clearer that the US government could not ‘drop’ charges and interfere in the affairs of courts, something which is not possible in India either. But a way out had to be found as India couldn’t afford to be seen as backing down either, especially when the UPA 2 regime is on the mat in the Indian domestic arena. Second, it was crystal clear to everyone that Devyani had more than a few skeletons in her cupboard, which though in no way directly related to the case in the US, definitely had set some section of the Indian public mood against her and the Indian government, which seemed like it was going all out to get an influential father’s daughter scot-free from what were serious allegations. Agreed, the Adarsh scam in Mumbai has nothing to with the US case, but once an official Indian enquiry Commission said that Devyani “furnished false information to own a flat in the Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society, it did raise questions about whether we could take all her claims of innocence at face value considering she had seemed to have no qualms about lying to in order to get a lucrative flat. Or the fact that India’s Supreme Court had noted that the rules for allotment of foreign language to Indian Foreign Service officers on the basis of their rank in the select list was changed only for Devyani’s batch in 1999 to ensure she got her chosen language. The Supreme Court noted this in a judgment while reinstating a dismissed IFS officer Mahaveer V Singhvi in Devyani’s batch, and imposing a fine of Rs 25,000 on the Union government for wrongfully terminating his services. Singhvi’s lawyer Jayant Bhushan has alleged that the unwarranted change in rules was done thanks of Uttam Khobragade’s IAS and political connections. What made things worse was that despite claims of Devyani’s salary being lower than US minimum wages for domestic workers, it was revealed that Devyani’s husband Aakash Singh Rathore was a US citizen and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and possibly with business interests in his family-owned winery in Michigan. Considering that Devyani’s maid was hired in the first place to care for her children and her father and others in government have questioned how she could afford to pay US wages to her maid while earning an Indian government salary, there arose the question of whether the income and citizenship of Devyani’s husband and the father of her children was irrelevant. But then, Sangeeta Richards, the maid has not received justice too. She has been painted as a gold digger desperate to live in the US, and even accused of possibly being a CIA agent by Uttam Khobragade. The US Justice Department move to spirit her husband and child out of India on anti-trafficking visas didn’t help public perception in India, but surely the trial should have brought out the truth. If she was indeed a liar who conned an innocent Devyani and made wild allegations despite being treated well, then that should have come out. But if her allegations of long hours of work and mistreatment were true, justice would demand that she be compensated by Devyani. Yes, she may remain in the US with her immediate family, but the US is no longer a land of milk and honey where everyone is rich and enjoys a high standard of living. In fact, it was never was, but that’s another story. Justice would demand that Sangeeta Richards could also deal with the case against her in India, a fact referred to today by Uttam Khobragade, who said that “whatever dispute the lady had raised regarding the payment and work is all in the domain of the Indian Government. The issue is already with the Indian Judicial System.” However, The Indian Express has earlier pointed out that what is not so well known is that the Delhi High Court order that has often been referred to was issued without a lawyer for Sangeeta or her husband being present. While lawyers for the Ministry of External Affairs were present in court, they did not raise any objections or inform the court about the previous complaints and counter-complaints between the diplomat and her employee. In its September order, the Delhi High Court had said that while prima facie evidence indicated that the case was in Devyani’s favour, since the contract of employment was signed in India, the details of the contract were not in the documents. The court observed that the contract placed on record was a standard agreement prescribed by the Embassy of the United States in India for regulating the relationship between diplomatic agents and their domestic assistants. However, the court also noted that the documents shown by Devyani did not disclose the contract between her and Sangeeta on the terms of wages and accommodation for employment as an India-based domestic assistant (IBDA). One wishes this was cleared up too so everyone knew whether Sangeeta Richards was indeed guilty, a CIA agent or worse. For that matter, while Preet Bharara wasn’t in the queue for justice here, surely he doesn’t have satisfaction too. He has been accused of going after Devyani and other high profile targets in the quest for political office in the US, and if that is true an indicted scalp is worthless compared to a convicted scalp. Surely time wasted for Preet Bharara. Even if he wasn’t into this for personal glory justice not being served is a loss to any prosecutor. Perhaps the only justice that has really emerged from l’affaire Devyani is that there is some parity now between how the US treats Indian diplomats and how we treat US diplomats. While the Indian government’s moves to cut US diplomatic liquor import permissions, identity cards for airports, etc, have been described as vindictive, and while they may indeed have been vindictive in response to how the Indian government perceived treatment of Devyani, the fact remains if the US doesn’t give Indian diplomats these facilities and privileges it is only fair that India doesn’t provide US diplomats the same facilities and privileges. Why should the Indian Ambassador to the US have to go through regular security while the US Ambassador to India gets an identity card that gives her a privileged status at Indian airports? How can the US embassy run a club on its premises if it doesn’t have the requisite local civic permissions for the same? If the US expects the Indian Embassy to follow local laws in the US, certainly it is not too much to expect the US Embassy in India to do the same.