Devyani Khobragade seeks extension of indictment deadline

“... We believe that making such a request under these circumstances constitutes good cause and is in ‘the public interest' since it is in the interest of justice, not to mention judicial economy, to promote and encourage the very sort of discussions which have taken place to date,” he said.

Sources had last week said the U.S. is proceeding with the prosecution of Khobragade and has no intention to withdraw the case of visa fraud against her.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has expressed hope of arriving at a resolution of the issue, which has resulted in “hiccups” in the India-U.S. bilateral ties.

“Absolutely” the State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Marie Harf, told reporters at her daily news conference on Monday, when asked if the U.S. was hopeful that the issue would be resolved.

This comes in the wake of strong Indian statement to the U.S. that it cannot be “business as usual” between the two sides till the issue is resolved.

Vikram Doraiswami, Joint Secretary (Americas), conveyed this to U.S. Ambassador Nancy Powell when she met him at South Block in New Delhi on Monday.

The U.S. and Indian officials are believed to be working on both the diplomatic and judicial front to arrive at an amicable resolution of the issue, with U.S. officials insisting that law would take its own course.

“As I've said, many, many times throughout this whole ordeal, that we don't want this to define our relationship going forward and don't think that it will,” Harf said noting that the U.S. does not want India-U.S. ties to be affected by the arrest of the Indian diplomat in New York last month on visa fraud charges.