New Delhi: Terming the Australian court order asking him to compensate a former Indian domestic staff member for ‘unpaid wages’ as “full of absurdities”, Navdeep Suri, former Indian envoy to the country, says the verdict is not in line with the Vienna convention.
Speaking to ThePrint, the retired diplomat said he’s “satisfied” with the response from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Suri also said he does not intend to fight the case nor pay the amount, which is roughly Rs 1.13 crore or $136,276.62 plus interest.
Suri said the judgment seeks to impose Australian minimum wages on an Indian staffer with an Indian passport, who is “ultimately governed by Indian rules, salaries and code of conduct”.
“It is ironic that Australia was recently lecturing India on the Vienna convention regarding the killing of a Sikh extremist,” he added.
On Thursday, the MEA rejected the 3 November court order, saying Australian authorities did not have the right to adjudicate on matters concerning India-based service staff of the high commission. It also called for the repatriation of the former domestic help, Seema Shergill, adding that any grievance she has must be redressed in India.
Suri served as high commissioner to Australia from April 2015-November 2016. Shergill worked as a cook and housekeeper at his official residence during this time, as well as a year prior in Cairo, when he was posted there as India’s ambassador to Egypt.
The MEA said Shergill “willfully deserted” her post in May 2016, a day before her scheduled return to India. She held an official passport and Australian diplomatic visa.
A flight ticket, seen by ThePrint, was booked for her repatriation to India on 27 May 2016 but she never boarded the flight.
Australian news reports say she gained Australian citizenship in 2021.
Asked why the case came up after all these years, Suri said: “I suspect her [Shergill’s] lawyers deliberately waited for me to retire from service, assuming I would no longer have diplomatic immunity.”
The former diplomat retired in September 2019 and the first notice in the case was issued later that year. Proceedings officially began in 2021. According to Article 31 of the Vienna convention, “A diplomatic agent shall enjoy immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving State. He shall also enjoy immunity from its civil and administrative jurisdiction.”
According to Switzerland-based international law expert, Rukmini Das, diplomatic immunity covers actions committed during the period one served as a diplomat. “However, the larger question, as we have seen in the Khobragade case, is whether diplomats and consular officials are still subject to the labour laws of a host country, while employing staff in a personal capacity,” she said.
Das was referring to the 2013 case of Devyani Khobragade, then acting consul general of the Indian Consulate in New York, who was accused of lying on the visa application form of her domestic help by paying her less than the stipulated wages. Khobragade’s arrest and strip search thereafter created a furore in India. She was later released on bail.
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‘Punches hole in Vienna convention’
The judgment is an ex-parte decision — one which did not require all parties to the dispute to be present. It seeks civil remedies for Shergill under Australia’s Fair Work Act (2009).
It states that she was not paid minimum wage, did not receive pay slips, was not compensated for overtime, nor allowed annual leave. “Her employment conditions bore no resemblance to what one would expect under Australian law — her passport was taken from her, she worked seven days a week, was never permitted to take leave, and was only allowed outside the house for brief periods a day when looking after Mr Suri’s dog,” states the judgment.
As a “level 2 employee”, the verdict says, she is entitled to an hourly wage of US$ 11.74 (AU$ 18.47).
“There was never an issue with her [Shergill]. She was desperate to come to Australia. The problem began when she had to sign an undertaking which said she had to return to India after her stint in Australia. She refused to sign it and left the job a day before she had to depart the country,” Suri added.
Shergill allegedly refused to sign an undertaking in 2016 that was required from staff at all Indian diplomatic missions in the aftermath of the Khobragade affair. It stated that they would return to India at the end of their tenure.
According to Suri, the order “imposes” Western standards on an Indian staffer, adding that it “punches a hole in the Vienna convention”.
“It makes the false assumption that an Indian high commissioner is a private employee and diplomatic staff, with a diplomatic visa, is a private employee,” he told ThePrint.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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