According to highly placed sources, Neena Malhotra, a senior officer of the Indian Foreign Service, explained to her superiors in the Ministry of External Affairs that the allegations against her had no base and also submitted documents to prove her innocence.
Malhotra’s former maid Shanti Gurung on July 1 last filed a federal lawsuit in New York accusing the diplomat of enslaving her and forcing her to work 16 hours a day. Gurung alleged in her lawsuit that she had been “essentially kidnapped” from India in 2006 at the age of 17 and had been ordered to give daily massages and perform other chores.
She also accused Neena Malhotra and her husband Jogesh Malhotra of holding her in involuntary servitude for more than three years. Gurung’s lawsuit sought unspecified damages, alleging that she had been paid only $ 120 over 40 months by the Malhotras.
But the diplomat, who is now director of the Southern Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, submitted to her superiors proofs in support of her claim that she had been regularly depositing money in Gurung’s bank account in Delhi. “The bank statement clearly shows that she (the maid) had been paid at least Rs 5,500 per month by the Malhotras and she has a balance of Rs 2.4 lakh in her account now,” said a senior official.
Sources said Malhotra had hired Gurung as a domestic help when she was posted in the Indian Consulate in New York in 2006. Gurung had visited the US Embassy in the national capital to procure a visa after agreeing to work as a domestic help with Malhotras. The terms of employment were agreed upon and Gurung was to get a payment of Rs 5,000 every month, they added.
Malhotra was staying alone in New York for a year and her husband joined her later. Sources said since the diplomat was at work from morning till evening, the domestic help had a run of the house, had keys of the premises and even used to go out shopping on her own and had freely mingled with other diplomats and visitors to Malhotras.
They said Gurung had even visited India and stayed with her family and expenses for her tour was borne by the Malhotras. When Malhotra was posted in India in July 2009, Gurung, who had held an official passport and a visa for a specified period of time, wanted to stay back in New York and requested her employers to refer her to other Indians in the city.
Malhotra agreed, but advised her to return to New Delhi for some time and get back to New York after completing paper-works and obtaining a regular passport. However, sources said, a day before Malhotra was to leave for India, Gurung disappeared and resurfaced last week to file the lawsuit against her former employer, sources said.