A file photo of India's Deputy Consul General in New York Devyani Khobragade
Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, arrested last week for alleged visa fraud, is protected from prosecution by virtue of her diplomatic status and this is an embarrassing failure of the American international protocol, her attorney Daniel N Arshack has said.
He expressed hope that the matter will be promptly resolved with "diplomats with authority at the highest levels of the Indian and US governments will confer and conclude that it is simply not in the mutual interests of our countries to continue with this ill-advised prosecution."
Distressed at the treatment that Ms Khobragade received at the hands of US authorities, Mr Arshack said there was simply no reason to have arrested her on the street in front of her daughter's school nor to have strip searched her.
"Similarly situated individuals of her stature are routinely provided an opportunity to report to the authorities to address charges, at their convenience, instead of being swept off the street like a common criminal," he said.
Meanwhile, an eminent Indian American attorney said that immunity-attempt would not prevail in the court.
"Immunity-attempt, however, will not prevail in court as a matter of law, but ought to prevail as part of our foreign relations so as to protect American diplomats serving abroad," said Ravi Batra, who represents the Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the Indian Congress in the US court cases.
Mr Batra expressed concern at the turn of events and "call for an immediate graceful resolution" to avoid damage to much larger American interests in bilateral and multilateral context.
"With the initial shock and awe of the diplomat-arrest diminished and reactive-popular unhappiness on the rise, which inherently reduces the "flexibility" of pre-election nations, the legalities of immunity or alleged immigration fraud notwithstanding, the Executive Branch, which includes Departments of State and Justice, ought to recalibrate its exclusive constitutional discretion," Mr Batra said.
Diplomats are frequently asked by the receiving-nations to leave either due to crimes committed in such receiving-nation or as a political rebuke of the sending nation for some recent disfavoured act in the comity of nations, he noted.
"But, they are not arrested. Peculiar about this arrest is not its legality," he said. "But that despite the existence of sound diplomatic and prosecutorial discretions not-to-criminally-charge, which is the diplomatic norm amongst nations, criminal charges were levelled, and that too with a maximum insult-causing public arrest effectuated, as opposed to a normal and more dignified surrender pre-arranged with the lawyer for the accused.
"We have had Americans, diplomats and others engage in illegal prostitution on foreign soil, which was criminally-chargeable - yet charges were not levelled and arrests did not occur. We have had a non-diplomat Robert Davis in Pakistan calmly kill two guys in defence of American national security, and a graceful exit was properly arranged and generous "wrongful death" compensation paid," Mr Batra added said.
He cautioned that sound judgement requires that a graceful exit out of this bilateral mess occur expeditiously, if American diplomats overseas are to be afforded maximum dignity - a vital and non-negotiable American interest, especially, after Benghazi.
"One such resolution is to legally permit DCG Khobragade to leave the United States and never return in exchange for dismissing the criminal charges or in full satisfaction of her criminal charges," Mr Batra said.