Devyani Khobragade gets full diplomatic immunity, flies back home

[jaunty]

Just when you thought things are getting back to normal....

I guess it's an agreed upon procedure. India did raise the issue of tax fraud in purchasing tickets for the maid's family. Now they can't simply let it go. So this way they can close that chapter.

 

[cyphercide]

The real diplomacy was still behind close doors. Those statements if he had made was for domestic consumption.

Domestic consumption or not, Salman Khurshid promised a formal apology and all charges dropped with regards to the case. Neither happened and he should be taken to task for the same. The jury is still out on the "real diplomacy" that some are speculating. I can't comment on conspiracy theories for now.

 

[jaunty]

The jury is still out on "real diplomacy" that some are speculating. I can't comment on conspiracy theories for now.

You don't expect to know the details of everything that happens behind close doors. There is always some amount of speculation and no it's not the same as "conspiracy theory".

Domestic consumption or not, Salman Khurshid promised a formal apology and all charges dropped with regards to the case. Neither happened and he should be taken to task for the same.

OK. Start a movement against him and take him to task.

 

[JanjaWeed]

I guess it's an agreed upon procedure. India did raise the issue of tax fraud in purchasing tickets for the maid's family. Now they can't simply let it go. So this way they can close that chapter.

Could be. & what about those privileges India withdrew for Americans in India? Will that be rolled back? Whichever way you look at it.. damage is done to both sides....more so to US than India! It's going to take some time to repair that...

 

[Bang Galore]

The second part - do you have a source for that? That DK's violations were notified before to India, and no action was taken? If that is true, I will admit that the Indian ministry of external affairs has a lot to answer for. It still does not excuse the violation of protocol, but the biggest wrong would have to be placed on the ministry's door, for not clarifying the practice or seeking formal exemption.

There were a series of messages exchanged, initiated mainly from the Indian side. Contrary to what is commonly said, there exists a mail from the U.S. state department confirming that the maid had her permission to stay in the u.s. revoked following removal of accreditation to the said diplomat. The U.S. government changed tack & made a single correspondence where they said certain questions were being raised. The very fact that the diplomat concerned remained in the U.S. clearly suggests that both she & the Indian government believed that there was no merit in any case & that the U.S. saw their position & probably(wrongly as it turns out) assumed that the U.s. was supportive..

The US had initially agreed to deport diplomat Devyani Khobragade's maid Sangeeta Richard to India and had even informed relevant authorities to facilitate the same, before it changed its mind for some reason.
TOI is in possession of a series of emails exchanged between Khobragade and the office of foreign missions (OFM), a state department wing meant to ensure diplomatic privileges and immunities, and also between her and NYPD. The emails show that the US had actually cancelled Richard's accreditation as the deputy consul general's maid and asked her to leave the country by July 22, exactly 30 days after her end of employment. These emails also show how "helpless" Khobragade felt as she repeatedly knocked on the doors of OFM and NYPD to help her trace the missing help.

"The Department has now terminated Ms Richard's accreditation as the Deputy Consul General's domestic employee, as of June 22, the date she left her employment. The Department gives 30 days from the date of termination to depart, so Ms Richard has until July 22 to leave the country with being declared an overstay. Relevant authorities have been made aware of the matter," is what OFM's deputy director Murray J Smith wrote to Khobragade and head of chancery in the consulate general of India in New York on July 11 in an email. This was three days after India revoked Sangeeta's passport.

The email was in response to an official communication from the Indian consulate seeking OFM's assistance for deporting Sangeeta back to India "on completion of the 30-day window".

This change in stance from treating the case as that of an absconding maid, as a flurry of emails indicates, to a trafficking offence and fraud without any explanation is said to be one of the main reasons why India felt short-changed over the issue which has marked a new low in India-US ties in several decades.

 

[cyphercide]

You don't expect to know the details of everything that happens behind close doors. There is always some amount of speculation and no it's not the same as "conspiracy theory"..

Erm...neither do you. It's unfair to be expected to respond to something that you think happened.


.

OK. Start a movement against him and take him to task.

I hope that the opposition will, soon enough.

 

[jaunty]

Could be. & what about those privileges India withdrew for Americans in India? Will that be rolled back?

I don't know. But let's hope not. Security measures aside there shouldn't be any unilateral privileges given to diplomats from any country.

Whichever way you look at it.. damage is done to both sides....more so to US than India! It's going to take some time to repair that...

Agreed. Both the parties share the blame here. India knew about the issue way back in September or even before that and they didn't act and the US should have been careful in handling this issue. They probably didn't expect the kind of reaction they got from India.

 

[Bang Galore]

Could be. & what about those privileges India withdrew for Americans in India? Will that be rolled back? Whichever way you look at it.. damage is done to both sides....more so to US than India! It's going to take some time to repair that...

Unlikely to be rolled back (liquor & food might be the exception). As for the expelling of the said diplomat, this might be a preemptive move before the courts gets into the issue. It is possible that a case of interfering with & subverting the Indian judicial process might be an argument that will be considered by the Indian courts. Anyone involved in spiriting away the maid's husband might be a potential target; possible that with Bharara's admission of interference that he might well be a target himself. He is unlikely to be coming to India anytime soon but the Indian government might not want an American diplomat being hauled by Indian courts similar to the Italian envoy's case. Better to get rid of him before any potential fireworks would be a good line of thinking to follow.

 

[JanjaWeed]

Unlikely to be rolled back (liquor & food might be the exception). As for the expelling of the said diplomat, this might be a preemptive move before the courts gets into the issue. It is possible that a case of interfering with & subverting the Indian judicial process might be an argument that will be considered by the Indian courts. Anyone involved in spiriting away the maid's husband might be a potential target; possible that with Bharara's admission of interference that he might well be a target himself. He is unlikely to be coming to India anytime soon but the Indian government might not want an American diplomat being hauled by Indian courts similar to the Italian envoy's case. Better to get rid of him before any potential fireworks would be a good line of thinking to follow.

now.. that argument sounds quite credible. Maybe it's in US's interest to withdraw concerned person from India before 'you know what' hits the fan!

 

[Sashan]

Unlikely to be rolled back (liquor & food might be the exception). As for the expelling of the said diplomat, this might be a preemptive move before the courts gets into the issue. It is possible that a case of interfering with & subverting the Indian judicial process might be an argument that will be considered by the Indian courts. Anyone involved in spiriting away the maid's husband might be a potential target; possible that with Bharara's admission of interference that he might well be a target himself. He is unlikely to be coming to India anytime soon but the Indian government might not want an American diplomat being hauled by Indian courts similar to the Italian envoy's case. Better to get rid of him before any potential fireworks would be a good line of thinking to follow.

India was not doing it for the reason it might cause trouble for the diplomat with the court. It is a simple case of tit-for-tat. You throw out one official, we will do the same which happens in similar cases. There is no way Indian court can touch that consular official(if he is a diplomat he will have full immunity) who will have immunity in this case as he was doing his official work - securing witness 2(maid's husband) or witness 1's(maid's) family from harassment as this is the reason cited for Human Trafficking under the law Devyani was arrested in US. The Italian envoy's case is different as he went to court to give an undertaking and so the court was willing to haul him. You can't possibly think both are similar.

 

[Developereo]

There were a series of messages exchanged, initiated mainly from the Indian side. Contrary to what is commonly said, there exists a mail from the U.S. state department confirming that the maid had her permission to stay in the u.s. revoked following removal of accreditation to the said diplomat. The U.S. government changed tack & made a single correspondence where they said certain questions were being raised. The very fact that the diplomat concerned remained in the U.S. clearly suggests that both she & the Indian government believed that there was no merit in any case & that the U.S. saw their position & probably(wrongly as it turns out) assumed that the U.s. was supportive..

The likely explanation is that the NYPD was only told the maid was absconding and had had her passport revoked. At that point, she became an illegal alien liable for deportation.

The NYPD only changed tack after they found out about the employment law violations and, subsequently, the visa form violations. At that point, the maid became eligible for legal protection as a whistleblower. To make matters worse for India, the US DOJ was in the middle of a crackdown on foreign diplomats abusing domestic help.

 

[JanjaWeed]

India was not doing it for the reason it might cause trouble for the diplomat with the court. It is a simple case of tit-for-tat. You throw out one official, we will do the same which happens in similar cases. There is no way Indian court can touch that consular official(if he is a diplomat he will have full immunity) who will have immunity in this case as he was doing his official work - securing witness 2(maid's husband) or witness 1's(maid's) family from harassment as this is the reason cited for Human Trafficking under the law Devyani was arrested in US. The Italian envoy's case is different as he went to court to give an undertaking and so the court was willing to haul him. You can't possibly think both are similar.

Does that mean US has the jurisdiction to interfere through their embassy in other country's internal affair? Doesn't quite sound a credible argument as there are quite a lot of underprivileged people who go through these kinda hardships in their day-to-day life. If that maid is a US citizen, then it makes sense.. even then the individuals they evacuated are not US citizens!

 

[Bang Galore]

The likely explanation is that the NYPD was only told the maid was absconding and had had her passport revoked. At that point, she became an illegal alien liable for deportation.

The NYPD only changed tack after they found out about the employment law violations and, subsequently, the visa form violations. At that point, the maid became eligible for legal protection as a whistleblower. To make matters worse for India, the US DOJ was in the middle of a crackdown on foreign diplomats abusing domestic help.

It was with the U.S. state department, not with the NYPD, I just pointed out that this story isn't as black & white as it is often made out to be. The MEA isn't filled by fools, if they believed that there was a serious problem developing, she would have been pulled out ages ago. The fact that they felt blindsided by the state department explains why the reaction was harsh.

India was not doing it for the reason it might cause trouble for the diplomat with the court. It is a simple case of tit-for-tat. You throw out one official, we will do the same which happens in similar cases. There is no way Indian court can touch that consular official(if he is a diplomat he will have full immunity) who will have immunity in this case as he was doing his official work - securing witness 2(maid's husband) or witness 1's(maid's) family from harassment as this is the reason cited for Human Trafficking under the law Devyani was arrested in US. The Italian envoy's case is different as he went to court to give an undertaking and so the court was willing to haul him. You can't possibly think both are similar.

I didn't mean that the Italian envoy's case was similar to anything here, just that Indian courts can deal pretty harshly with matters that deal with contempt issues. It was no one's case that the Italian ambassador had no immunity, it was that the court read contempt as something it wouldn't tolerate(irrespective of any undertaking). The Indian government might argue immunity in this case but it wouldn't stop an appellate court from probably summoning any individual they feel has shown contempt or interfered in the judicial process (any argument that spiriting away an Indian citizen out of India to prevent the Indian judicial process from working will have to be tested in courts & it would be a very risky argument to make). The final result might be immunity but the Indian government might not have wanted to test the court's resolve & risk a bigger problem with the U.S. Granted that this is only speculation at this point but it is by no means a very unfeasible one.

It is still possible that arrest warrants could be issued against US embassy officials & Bharara himself. While there might not be any practical conclusion to such issue, it might make it impossible for any named person to ever visit India.

 

[cyphercide]

New Delhi: BJP today described the indictment of diplomat Devyani Khobragade in the US as a "defeat" for India, saying the criminal case against her would remain in America.

"Bringing Khobragade is our defeat not a win because a case will be on against her in the US. The US has decided. So we somehow are bringing her back. It's clear that there was no effect of India's arguments on the US," BJP leader and former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha told the media.

The 1999 batch IFS officer was today indicted for visa fraud and making false statements by a grand jury in New York which held that the charges against her will remain even as she headed back to India after being accorded full diplomatic immunity by the US.

Sinha, who had earlier advocated prosecution of American diplomats with same sex partners in India as a tit-for-tat measure for US action against Khobragade, again pushed for action against US officials.

"How many officials of the US embassy do wrong things and no curb has been put on them. So many suggestions came...," he said, adding that it is imperative at times to explain in a language the other country understands.

"Somewhere or the other we are not taking the matter seriously. Whether it is America or any other country it is necessary for India to explain that we will do the same with you," he said.

Devyani Khobragade's indictment a defeat for India: BJP | NDTV.com

UPA`s foreign policy disastrous, mishandled Devyani issue: BJP

And so it begins...

 

[Screambowl]

Devyani Khobragade's indictment a defeat for India: BJP | NDTV.com

UPA`s foreign policy disastrous, mishandled Devyani issue: BJP

And so it begins...

this was already a political drama to gain minority and female votes