A court has ordered the deportation of an Indian taxi driver after convicting him for indecently assaulting a woman passenger four years ago, a media report said.

Jaswinder Singh Mutta, 27, has been accused of raping a 26-year-old woman passenger late at night in his taxi in North Fitzroy in Melbourne in January, 2010. 

Mutta pleaded guilty before the county court to indecently assaulting the woman.

The judge sentenced Mutta to the time he has already served, plus one day so deportation arrangements could be made, the Herald Sun reported Wednesday.

“This is a terribly tragic affair that has seen the lives of two obviously promising young people wrecked up to this point,” the judge said.

The defence counsel said the devout Sikh had spent six months in “extremely arduous” circumstances in Indian custody and had been in restrictive protective custody for the past 19 months due to severe racial abuse received from other prisoners.

Mutta fled to India after being questioned by the police in 2010 in connection to the rape.

He was extradited from India in January 2012, following his arrest by Indian police.

The victim had caught Mutta’s cab home after drinking with girlfriends, the report said.

Mutta forced the victim on to the back seat of the cab and indecently assaulted her.

The judge said the shocking case was an appalling breach of trust and a warning to young women.

The woman said, in her impact statement, that the attack had “devastating, profound and far-reaching” consequences for her.

“My faith in myself and my faith in the world has been decimated,” the report quoted the victim as saying.

Mutta, in his defence, contended that he had spent 867 days in custody which was sufficient punishment for his crime.

Published in The Indian Sun (Indian Magazine in Australia)

IANS

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