The domestic service worker identified as Sheela Ningwal was subject to callous abuse and retaliation.
Indian American Himanshu Bhatia, CEO of IT staffing and consulting firm Rose International and IT Staffing, has been charged with callous treatment of a domestic help who had come from India to work for her.
According to the complaint by the US Labor Secretary Thomas E Perez on August 22 in the US District Court for the Central District of California, the domestic service worker identified as Sheela Ningwal was subject to callous abuse and retaliation.
The Department of labor alleges that Himanshu paid her domestic service worker USD 400 a month plus food and housing for work being performed during 15 and half hours a day seven days a week at her home in San Juan Capistrano and other luxury residences in Miami, Las Vegas and Long Beach California.
Sheela was forced to sleep in the garbage on a piece of carpet alongside Bhatia’s dogs when she was ill, and was left without food when Bhatia was away from her residence for days.
The complaint also alleges that Bhatia impounded Ningwal’s passport, restricting her free movement and only made available to the domestic service worker when she had to travel to perform domestic service duties at Bhatia’s penthouse in Miami.
In December 2014, Bhatia terminated Ningwal after catching her researching the topics of “labor laws” online and after the domestic service worker, refused to sign a document stating that she was being paid an adequate salary and had no employment dispute with Bhatia, the complaint said.
The Wage and Hour Division of the department found that Bhatia violated the Fair Labor Standard Act’s minimum wage and record keeping provisions from July 2012 to December 2014, as well as the act’s anti-retaliation provision.
Bhatia’s firm had more than USD 357 million in revenue in 2011.