Adani case: US judge asks prosecutors to justify dropping fraud charges
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A United States judge on Friday ordered the US Department of Justice to justify its decision to drop fraud charges against Adani Group chairperson Gautam Adani, Reuters reported.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis at the US District Court in the Eastern District of New York declined to rule immediately on a request filed by Gautam Adani’s lawyers to dismiss the case. The court gave the prosecutors time till July 13 to submit more information to support their decision to drop the charges.
“The government’s terse, bland and conclusory statement affords the court neither a sufficient basis to reach any conclusion, nor the opportunity to conduct any analysis of the government's request for dismissal,” Reuters quoted Garaufis as having said.
The US authorities had in November 2024 indicted Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani for allegedly orchestrating a $265 million fraud scheme to bribe officials in India for solar energy contracts, and then misrepresenting the company’s anti-bribery practices to investors in the US.
The details of the alleged bribes were concealed to secure financing, the US justice department had claimed.
The Adani Group has denied the allegations. In a stock exchange filing in November 2024, the conglomerate said that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had been charged in the US for securities fraud, not bribery.
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