Adanis aren't named in bribery charges: Senior lawyer Rohatgi

Senior advocate and former attorney general of India Mukul Rohatgi on Wednesday said that neither Gautam Adani nor his nephew Sagar Adani has been named in charges related to bribery or obstruction of justice under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

- Utkarsh Anand

This is the first specific reaction of the Adani Group to the charges detailed in a criminal indictment and a civil complaint by US prosecutors and regulators, although Rohatgi, who acknowledged that he has appeared for the Adani Group in some cases, emphasised that he was expressing his personal views.

The controversy arises amid a criminal indictment filed by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and a civil complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York against the Adani Group chairman and some executives of his vast conglomerate.

The allegation is that the Solar Energy Corporation of India entered into an agreement with the Adani Group to buy solar power at a certain price that it would then sell to the states, but that because it had agreed to buy the power at a high rate, no state was willing to sign a Power Sales Agreement (PSA) with it. Adani, the prosecutors allege, incentivized the states to sign the agreement. The Adani Group has already dismissed the charges as baseless.