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21-02-2025
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI/ NEW YORK: The US Securities and Exchange Commission has asked Indian authorities for help in its investigation of Adani Group founder Gautam Adani and his nephew over alleged securities fraud and a $265-million bribery scheme, a court filing showed on Tuesday.
The regulator told a New York district court it was making efforts to serve its complaint on the founder and his nephew, Sagar Adani, and was seeking help from India’s law ministry to do so.
Neither individual is in US custody, and both are now in India.
“The SEC has requested assistance … under the Hague service convention,” it said in the court filing.
Adani Group and India’s law ministry did not immediately respond to a media request for comment.
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he did not discuss the Adani case with US President Donald Trump during his visit to Washington, describing it to reporters as an individual issue never discussed by leaders.
India’s opposition Congress party has called for Adani’s arrest and accused Modi of shielding him or favoring him in deals in the past. Modi’s party and Adani have denied the charges.
Last year, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn unsealed an indictment accusing Adani of bribing Indian officials to convince them to buy electricity produced by Adani Green Energy, opens new tab, a subsidiary of his Adani Group.
He then misled US investors by providing reassuring information about the company’s anti-graft practices, it added.
Adani Group has called the accusations “baseless” and vowed to seek “all possible legal recourse”.
In January, Adani Green said it had appointed independent law firms to review the US indictment.
Opposition politicians from Indian states named in the US indictment of billionaire Gautam Adani denied any wrongdoing on Friday, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party said they had to answer for contracts signed while they were in power.
US authorities have charged Adani and seven others with agreeing to pay bribes to unnamed Indian government officials to obtain solar power-supply contracts in Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, as well as the federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir, between 2021 and 2022.
The Adani Group has denied the allegations made by the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission as “baseless” and said it was “fully compliant with all laws”.
All the states named by US authorities were at the time ruled by parties opposed to Modi’s ruling alliance.
This includes the Congress party, which has called for Adani’s arrest and accused Modi of shielding him or favoring him in deals. Modi’s party and Adani have denied the charges.
The then-ruling parties of Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh said in separate statements that their governments had not signed any power purchase deal with the Adani Group, but had bought through a federal government agency, Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI).
“There was no engagement with any private party whatsoever, including Adani Group,” said Pratap Keshari Deb of the regional Biju Janata Dal party, who was energy minister of Odisha during the time US authorities specified.
