Ajay Hinduja, his spouse Namrata and fogeys Prakash and Kamal have been all indicted final 12 months by Geneva prosecutors for allegedly making their employees work as much as 18-hour days with out a break day at their villa overlooking Lake Geneva.
“Someone who would make an employee work that hard would be an idiot,” Ajay Hinduja advised the court docket on Monday. “She wouldn’t have been able to do her job properly if she worked 18 hours a day, 7 days a week.”
“I am shocked that someone who we considered to be a second mum for our children, could accuse us of something as demeaning as human trafficking,” he mentioned later in the listening to, testifying primarily in French.
He mentioned he wished to thank the lady for her work for the household, including that she’s nonetheless in contact together with his youngsters and sends them Diwali greetings by cellphone. The household confiscated their employees’s passports and put to them work on short-term vacationer visas repeatedly obtained on false pretenses, prosecutors say. Ajay Hinduja rejected that accusation and mentioned the workers had contracts endorsed by the Swiss embassy in India and their visas have been usually renewed by Geneva cantonal authorities. Judge Sabina Mascotto instantly rebutted that characterization of occasions, saying checks confirmed the employees lacked the right Swiss paperwork. Instead they solely ever had French-issued, Schengen-zone visas, referring to the European journey space, which permits folks to maneuver with out passport checks.
Ajay Hinduja mentioned his employees have been allowed to return and go from the home as they happy offered at the very least certainly one of them was dwelling always for safety causes. Asked about their salaries, which prosecutors say by no means amounted to greater than a few hundred Swiss francs a month — a fraction of native wages — he mentioned it was the Hinduja Group’s HR division that did all hiring and contracts, not him.
On Monday night, he mentioned his attorneys and people for the three plaintiffs have been “close” to reaching a deal that will see the employees withdraw their complaints. But even when an accord is reached, it ought to nonetheless imply the legal trial will proceed.
That all of the employees recruitment was completed from India was a constant chorus from the 56-year-old, who sits on the board of the Hinduja Group, certainly one of India’s largest conglomerates.
‘Regret’
His one remorse, he testified, was that he didn’t get extra concerned in the working of the family after his mother and father have been convicted of minor infractions, after being denounced at an employment tribunal in 2006. “I regret not having analyzed the situation more closely,” he mentioned, in half as a result of he was so busy together with his personal work. “I had confidence” in our authorized advisers, he mentioned.
The trial solely bought underway Monday after the Hindujas secured a postponement, citing the lack of the mother and father to journey due to poor well being. The attorneys then sought to have the choose recused, citing alleged bias, and to have the case despatched again for re-examination. Both requests have been rejected.