NEW DELHI: An Indian diplomat charged with visa fraud in the United States has been suspended by her government for getting American citizenship for her children without official permission from Delhi, local news reports said on Saturday.

“The Ministry of External Affairs has penalised diplomat Devyani Khobragade for failing to inform the government appropriately about her children’s US passports, even as it has launched another inquiry into interviews that Ms Khobragade has given to media organisations including The Hindu in the past few weeks,” The Hindu reported.

It said pending the second inquiry, the director-level officer has been put on a “compulsory wait”, which means that she has been relieved of her assignment in the Department of Development Partnership Administration, and has received a strong censure.

Mr Khobragade says she will not resign.

The Hindu said Ms Khobragade was apparently found guilty of “serious misconduct” as she had applied for foreign passports for her two daughters without taking clearance from the government.

In an interview to The Hindu last week, Ms Khobragade had denied that she had broken the service conduct rules, but admitted that she informed the Government of the passports only a month after she was arrested in New York over the case of underpaying her domestic help.

“I informed the government when it was necessary to, when they wanted to bring me back to India, and asked me to hand over my daughters’s passports (in January 2014),” Ms Khobragade told The Hindu.

Her arrest brought Indo-US relations to a standstill, and effected the ouster of US Ambassador to India Nancy Powell. She now faces another enquiry, which could attract even more severe penalties, for the interviews she has given to the media.

The paper said her comments, including demanding a “political resolution” to her case in the US, has particularly upset the Government, and Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh has taken a keen interest in the proceedings against Ms Khobragade. The official move against her acquires significance ahead of President Barrack Obama’s visit to New Delhi next month.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2014