Pay $1.36L to ex-staffer: Oz court to Indian diplomat

New Delhi, November 5

A repeat of the Devyani Khobragade episode but with much less harsh reverberations seems to have taken place in Australia where a court asked India’s former High Commissioner Navdeep Suri to pay a former domestic employee Australian $1.36 lakh in compensation for unpaid wages and unfair working conditions.

Sources here said the plaintiff, Seema Sherghill, seemed to have adapted tactics similar to the Indian domestic assistant Sangeeta Richard employed by Khobragade in an incident that took place in 2013. In the end, Richard became a US citizen while Sherghill — with her tale of woe — bagged Australian citizenship.

Sherghill told the court that she was made to work extra hours and wasn’t paid for that. Suri, having retired from diplomatic service, did not contest the charges in the Australian court.

Sources here said after the Sangeeta Richard episode where she told the US authorities that Khobragade was making her work like a slave, the government was offering contractual opportunities at embassies to people from India only after they signed a letter stating that they were satisfied with the residential quarters and the wages.

What struck the authorities as odd at that time was that after arriving in Australia to work on behalf of the mission, Sherghill did not sign the letter.