FILE photo: Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade
The US is reportedly proceeding with the prosecution of senior Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade and has no intentions of withdrawing the case of visa fraud against her.
Sources in the US said more evidence is being gathered against Ms Khobragade before the indictment is filed, the deadline for which ends on January 13.
Sources also added that there was no question of an apology to India over the arrest of the 39-year-old diplomat which evoked a sharp response from New Delhi and sparked widespread protests in India.
New Delhi has demanded the withdrawal of the case against Ms Khobragade and an apology for the treatment meted out to the diplomat.
A 1999-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, Ms Khobragade, then serving as India's Deputy Consul General in New York, was arrested on December 12 on charges of making false declarations in a visa application for her domestic help, Sangeeta Richard. She was later released on a USD 250,000 bond.
She was also strip-searched and put in a cell with criminals, triggering a diplomatic row between both countries. India retaliated strongly by downgrading privileges of a certain category of US diplomats among several other steps.
But sources said "everything with regard to the Indian diplomat had been done by the book and that there was no nefarious motive", emphasising that indictment against her will be brought.
Sources, though, conceded that if Ms Khobragade received UN immunity, she could not be prosecuted or brought to court for the entire period of the immunity. The case would then be in "suspension" but won't be dismissed, they said.
The diplomat had been transferred from the Indian Consulate in New York to the country's mission to the United Nations following her arrest in order to enable her to apply for full diplomatic immunity. India has informed the US that Ms Khobragade was accredited to the United Nations as a member of the country's delegation to the General Assembly much before her arrest.
But if the diplomat could still face arrest if she, after getting UN immunity, went back to India and returned to US for a visit, since the charges against her would stand, the sources added.