THE recent indictment of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and his associates by a Court in United States of America in the ‘Solar Energy Bribery Scheme’ running into more than US$ 250 million exposes once again the Adani group’s vast corruption and its ability to influence Central and state governments in gaining lucrative contracts. It is a matter of grave concern that such a level of corruption is going on with impunity under the patronage of the BJP-led NDA government. The AIKS, in a press statement issued on November 23, has said that it sees this indictment as taking a heavy toll on India’s image in the international arena and unequivocally condemns the ruling BJP’s rush to defend Adani’s actions.

The parallel charges made by the US Department of Justice in New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington DC on November 20 will see Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and Cyril Cabanes – executives of Adani Green Energy Limited and Azure Power Global Limited – and few other senior business executives connected to the two companies face trial for violating antifraud provisions of US securities laws.

As alleged in the indictment, between approximately 2020 and 2024, the accused agreed to pay more than US$250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain lucrative solar energy supply contracts with the Indian government, which were projected to generate more than US$2 billion in profits after tax over 20 years. Gautam Adani and his associates allegedly conspired to misrepresent their company’s bribery and corruption practices and conceal the ‘Bribery Scheme’ from US investors and international financial institutions in order to obtain financing, including to fund those solar energy supply contracts procured through bribery. Some of the accused have also been indicted with conspiring to obstruct the investigations by US authorities into the ‘Bribery Scheme’.  Among other things, four of the accused conspired to delete electronic materials related to the ‘Bribery Scheme’, including emails, and electronic messages. 

Gautam Adani’s conglomerate is not new to accusations of lobbying, corruption and anti-competition activities. Whether we see Adani’s role in influencing the NITI Aayog and the central government in bringing the three pro-corporate farm laws, or of him pulling the ‘world’s largest corporate con’ in the Hindenburg investigations, it is crystal clear that the total immunity offered to him by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power has led to increasing stranglehold of the Adani Group in different sectors.

The AIKS demands that the Government of India launch an inquiry into all transactions of Gautam Adani, especially in the government contracts awarded to him domestically – whether they are in airports, seaports, railways, food silos, etc. The rot runs very deep, and it shows that the suspicions by farmers and workers of Adani becoming the modern East India Company were never a hyperbole.