Hinduja family case: Four members of the billionaire Hinduja family have been sentenced to four to four and a half years in prison by a Swiss court for exploiting domestic workers at their villa in Geneva. However, the court has dismissed the charges of human trafficking against them.
Actually, Indian-origin tycoon Prakash Hinduja and his wife, son and daughter-in-law were accused of human trafficking of their servants. All of them were Indians. These servants worked for the Hinduja family in their lakeside villa in Geneva.
The court heard the sentence
The court has sentenced Prakash Hinduja and his wife Kamal to 4.5 years of imprisonment. While his son Ajay and his wife Namrata have been sentenced to four years each. All four accused will appeal against the court’s decision in the higher court.
While pronouncing the sentence, the Swiss court said, ‘The members of the Hinduja family have been found guilty of exploiting the workers and providing them meager health benefits.’ The court also said, ‘The salary given to the employees was less than one-tenth of the salary available for such jobs in Switzerland.’
Family members were not present
During this time, all four members of the Hinduja family were not present in the court. At the time of pronouncing the sentence, their family’s business manager Najeeb Jiyaji was present in the Geneva court. The court has also sentenced the manager to 18 months of suspended sentence. However, the court dismissed the charges of smuggling saying that the employees knew what they were doing.
