A dispute that first simmered in the corridors of the Italian Embassy more than a decade ago has found new life. The Delhi High Court has breathed fresh air into a 12-year-old lawsuit filed by Indian staffers who say they were paid less than their Italian counterparts for doing the same work — a grievance that once echoed loudly through diplomatic circles.
A division bench has overturned a 2019 decision that had tossed the case out at the starting line. According to the bench, the earlier judge shut the doors too soon, venturing into factual determinations that can only be settled through evidence, not assumption. With that, the suit stands revived and will now march toward trial.
The pay-parity quarrel gained unexpected national attention back in 2013, not least because the named respondents included both the Italian government and the then-ambassador, who was already under scrutiny in India for unrelated controversies involving Italian marines.
The employees — hired locally since the late ’90s — claim they were kept on lower rungs of the pay ladder despite Italy’s own rules calling for equal treatment within the same employment category. For years, they pressed their concerns with officials in New Delhi and Rome, alleging that promises to fix the gap never materialised. With statutory permission to sue a foreign state in hand, they approached the Court seeking a declaration of discriminatory treatment and more than ₹2 crore in unpaid dues.
The Italian side has maintained that its law does not mandate absolute parity and that differences in pay can be justified by variables such as citizenship or cost-of-living conditions. The earlier judge accepted those arguments without allowing the matter to unfold at trial.
The High Court, however, has now drawn a line through that approach. Whether the two groups of employees formed a comparable class — and whether economic factors could legally justify the wage divide — are questions that, the bench stressed, must be answered only after the full evidentiary picture emerges.
With the suit restored to the docket, the long-shelved contest over embassy pay now returns to the judicial arena, set for the thorough examination it never received the first time around.
