A New York City Magistrate Judge on Wednesday recommended that an Indian diplomat, Neena Malhotra, and her husband Jogesh be required to pay out nearly $1.5 million for forcing an Indian girl, Shanti Gurung, at the time said to be underage, to work without pay and meting out “barbaric treatment” to her in their plush East 43rd Street Manhattan apartment.
According to reports the Malhotras induced Ms. Gurung to “work without pay by seizing her passport and visa, restricting her ability to leave their apartment, and constantly warning her that if she traveled on her own without their permission, she would be arrested, beaten, raped and sent back to India as ‘cargo',” in the words of Magistrate Judge Frank Maas.
In 2010 Ms. Gurung's lawyer, Mitchell Karlan, had said to The Hindu, “Shanti's story is one of almost unimaginable cruelty. Over three years without pay, without a passport, without freedom to leave, without friends or family, and unable to speak English to get help.” He added that she continued to live with the emotional scars of this ordeal.
The recommendations by the Magistrate will be subject to approval by Judge Victor Marrero, who is overseeing judge in the case. In December 2010 Judge Marrero granted Ms. Gurung a default judgment against her former employers, who had by that time returned to India.
No response
While Ms. Malhotra was said to have been in the continuing employment of the Ministry of External Affairs, the first ruling in the case against her and her husband was aimed at expediting the serving of legal papers to them in New Delhi, after repeated attempts to do so through authorised agents and official channels for several months had failed to elicit any response.
Outlining the initial lawsuit filed by Ms. Gurung, Mr. Karlan said that during the time in question Ms. Malhotra served as the Counselor of Press, Culture, Information, Education and Community Affairs at the Consulate General of India in Manhattan.
In her lawsuit Ms. Gurung alleged that in bringing her over to the U.S. in 2006 on an A-3 visa Ms. Malhotra instructed Ms. Gurung to tell the U.S. embassy in New Delhi that she would be paid $7 per hour. She also “asked Ms. Gurung to lie about her birth date, so that she would appear to U.S. officials be eighteen, not her actual age of seventeen”, according to the filing.
With a steady deterioration in her living conditions from June 2006 onwards, Ms. Gurung was required to “perform substantially more duties than had been represented at the time of recruitment,” and this included cooking and cleaning, daily massages for Ms. Malhotra, grocery shopping and laundry, and waiting upon guests for dinner parties that the Malhotras regularly held, which often went on until 3 a.m., the lawsuit alleged.
Keywords: U.S. laws, domestic violence
A joke of an amount. The amount should have been hefty enough to break
this couple financially, so that the girl whose life was ripped apart
gets justice.
Shameless and barbaric act by Indian diplomat. How can we think that they could represent a nation genuinely when they can't treat their own worker being from the same country. Do we need these kind of officers? Indian government should not support this officer. Punish this lady diplomat for human violation and harrasment. Revoke the position immediately.
@Umesh, your comments are pathetic and insensitive. You don't know the life long impact of living and spending days in such solitary confinement and that too in fear at young age. If you have been to New York and seen 43rd street you will feel how the life will be outside for a person who can't speak English and have lack the knowledge of that place.
US laws sometimes look like jokes. Compensation of 1.5 Million US
Dollars? Really absurd.
UPSC/LBSMAA should first focus on grooming better humans and then a civil servent. The country can meanwhile hang its head in shame thanks to the Malhotras.
Indian Congress regime's diplomats showing their true colours to the world.
Poor girl! How horrible for her to go through such a nightmare in her life!! These people are not diplomats, they are criminals! The U.S. court system has no mercy for human trafficking and human slavery. I wouldn't be surprised if this criminal couple get 10 years in prison for these atrocities. Let it be a lesson to Indians who go abroad and think they can bring criminal conduct with them. They think they can bribe their way through life with no responsibility for their actions. They can't.
Mr. Kumar, while I agree wholeheartedly with the earlier part of your
opinion. The later part is way off the truth. Corruption is not our
exclusivity. Remember we got it primarily from some visitors; let me
think, that's the British. Corruption permeates humanity like no
other and there are no boundaries to that.
Thanks to the US court for setting guidelines for the Indian
judiciary. The most heinous and barbaric treatment is suffered by our
armed forces personnel. Could be seen in any cantonment and PMF
camps. Jawans are working as maid in the officers quarters. Washing
clothes even undergarments of officers and their families, cooking
meals, handling babies and dogs can be most seen. If you to any unit
in Delhi and follow any person properly, you will reach to an
officer's quarter. Officer's wife generally treat them like slave
with very low dignity and call the 'BHAIYA'.
The Hindu deserves unreserved praise for publishing this horrible inhuman treatment of an innocent teenage girl by so called educated couple living in New York.This is one story of lack of empathy and crude and brutal inflict on an Indian maid.Thousands such instances are happening every second in India.Empty or half emty stomach maids are expoited by rich and wealthy to worst crimes that shame even the crime inficted by Nazi under Hitler or in Gulags under Stalin. In the words of Voltaire," Comfort of the rich is ensured by an abundance supply of the poor".A social renaissance is waiting in India to root out this evil.Dickens 1860 London is living in 2012 Delhi or Bombay. India is hailed as ushering into superpower. As long as its citizen, particulary less well off,are provided life of dignity, human dignity where one human is treated like human by all Indians. Respect for all humans irrespective of economic,caste, gender or religious origin are essential norms for a civilized world.
If the details stand true, they should be put behind bars for a good
amount of time. A large section of contemporary Indian society needs to
go through a spiritual revolution.
Setting aside individual aberrations for the moment, look at this:
'NO RESPONSE
While Ms. Malhotra was said to have been in the continuing employment of the
Ministry of External Affairs, the first ruling in the case against her and her husband was aimed at expediting the serving of legal papers to them in New Delhi, after repeated attempts to do so through authorised agents and official channels for several months had failed to elicit any response.' we are ashamed of our government, systems and political support to the aberrations.
Over last few years, I have observed pathetic shallowness and hypocrisy in the people at high posts in India. I now know why this country has been under constant rule. A country where such pathetic people can occupy such high posts learning some books by rote, or not even that, just by their "connections/influence/money", cannot expect to have law, justice, peace, freedom in its society.
And when I look around young people who want to work hard, work honestly, and live with pride, but are instead made to fight everyday for basic necessities of life, because everything is being eaten by these so called dignitaries, it pains one's heart. I think that this country needs an ideological revolution which can wake it up from this long sleep.
Even after 65 years of independence still millions of indians are
slaves for the rich and immature people of india. Neena Malhotra, and
her husband Jogesh should be punished severely and they should be ashamed for what they did.
Best punishment for such crime is put the accused behind the bars for
same duration, than only he will realize how important freedom is for
anybody. And it would be best lesson for those who are still doing such
brutal crime and not yet caught. Giving punishment of $1.5 million is
peanuts for them.
We should learn from this incident. In India we also take our maids as granted. I have seen in many places, people do not respect their maids. We never think about their life and try to use them as will. It is great lesson for all us.
Really surprising how the girl could get clearance to go to foreign land without proper verification by our agencies because she is a staff of our embassy. A blind faith or in connievence?
We Indians have gotten used to treating all our "lesser" compatriots badly. This is true all the way from the top of the food chain (or class hierarchy if you want a better word) all the way down to the bottom ! The lowly will exploit the lowlier ! And we don't care much of a hoot about local laws, having witnessed law breaking without punitive consequence every day. I draw attention to how Indian businessmen as NRIs are also exporting corruption and lawless behaviour to other countries. Major scams in the USA linked to NRIs are surfacing during the past two years with regularity. Every country that imports NRIs should make it mandatory for them to have a course on ethics. As Indians though raised in a corrupt environment, we do not lack a sense of what is ethical, it is just that the NRI is trapped by his own cleverness and thinks that he can wriggle out of it just like it is habitually done back in India. In many developed countries, there is a functional rule of law and justice is delivered without decades of delay. Elite NRI's are also increasingly hooking into the political systems of these countries which complicates matters for the "normal" NRI's ! At least, in this case a maid went to Court and secured justice. Let this be an eye opener.
Such incidents are fairly common in India. If Indian judiciary finds out about all such instances and starts fining in the same way, I think Government of India will receive about a billion dollars in fines. Not a very bad way of raising capital!!!
People like this are spoiling Indians stature..
There is a saying in Tamil language that unless the thief has a mind to change his habit no law can bring any change in his habit of stealing. The alleged behavior of the Indian Diplomate is one such example.The tendency of exploitation is in their blood.
This might be just one of the countless cases of abuse of the domestic help by Indian families. While some employers are aware, some are oblivious as to what constitutes abuse, which is even more disturbing!
The accused Malhotras should be put in Jail or meted out some punishment that is commensurate with the crime they meted out to this young Indian Girl. The diplomat should first be fired from the services and all the monies be recovered for the time she was in New York. She should also publicly apologize to the people of India for abusing power at taxpayers cost. The Indian Government should review the policies and controls they employ for such diplomats and especially not allow then to take any maids with them abroad.
As a country, we should should hang our heads in shame. The inhuman
treatment of a domestic servant, threat of rape, violence and being
sent home "as a cargo" makes my skin crawl. I hear the outrage when
our celebrities or diplomats are subjected to a body search or
questioned at the immigration. Your readers and many others in India
condemned when two children in Norway were separated from their
parents & put into a foster home in Norway. Now, where is our sense of shame and outrage when a diplomat breaks the law of the land he lives in? We know that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but is this the image that we want to
create about Indians? When diplomats behave in such a bad manner, and
hide behind their "Diplomatic immunity", and nothing happens it is
just shocking, to say the least.
Are we becoming a country of insensitive, law breaking, thick skinned people?
Most callous and crude behavior of educated Officer, exploiting the poor; MUST put them to shame by depriving them of their assets, jail them for life time, mutilated, so that it will send a lesson to would-be-exploiters; v v bad show indeed
It is sad that the External Affairs ministry is not cooperating in this case against the Indian diplomat.
This women officer must be removed from her Job and shuld be put in jail as she badly represnted india and not being a good human being. She could atleast have learned how to treat fellow human being after living in a civilized country
This proves the point that we never change. What a shame, the person who represents India overseas committing to such an act. This behavior is same as the one done by many Indian software contracting companies, where they don't pay, don't run your pay-check hide your W2 etc. This is shocking because this is done by the family working in an embassy.
In Chandigarh many teenager boys were being employed as help for domestic work by the High Court officials promising them govt jobs and making them work from 8 am to 12 midnight. Exploitation is prohibited only for others and not to the Magistrates and Judges.
And this person has been serving as our Counselor of Press, Culture, Information, Education and Community Affairs.
What a Sham!
"continuing employment of the Ministry of External Affairs", Sad to hear
this part. MEA should not support this person ..and I hope MEA does not
pay for the fine, as it would be MY money.
Its not new/news that the Indian diplomat, Neena Malhotra, and her husband Jogesh barbaric treatment. Many Indians bring legally/illegally Indian girls to do a slavery at thier houeses. In this case, Government of India should hang Indian diplomat for damaging the National interest at outside India. Its shameful act for Indian officers.
This is an outrage!! These so called "diplomats" should be thrown in jail and incarcerated for life! Mere dollar amount in fine is not good enough! this couple have caused life long psychological trauma to this innocent child!! Horrible shame on them and their likes! What is the indian administrative service going to do about this and other outrageous acts by these so called "ias officers?!
This is an excellent news! I wish such horrific acts that regularly
happen in India, by Indians, on Indians, also get the same attention by
media that would lead to more convictions by the courts.
Having lived abroad and seen many of our diplomats I can say that majority of them are mediocre people who have memorized general knowledge books, passed some exams and have gotten these positions of power. They don't have the self- confidence to match their white counter parts.They are obviously bad representatives or ambassadors. 95% bring servants and work them to the bone. What a shame! Glad that The Hindu has started reporting on this subject.
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