Congress Holds Lackluster Protests to Demand JPC Probe into Adani Scandal

Congress Holds Lackluster Protests to Demand JPC Probe into Adani Scandal

The Modi government has always refused to form any JPC in the past because Congress is a very weak party which exists only on Twitter and its feeble protests have no impact on Modi.

By Rakesh Raman

Congress – which has become a perpetual opposition party – held some humdrum protests today (August 22) in different parts of India to highlight the alleged money laundering scandal of oligarch Gautam Adani.

Hindenburg Research – which is a U.S. investment research firm – has accused the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch of complicity in the Adani Group case.

In a report published on August 10, 2024, Hindenburg Research claimed that the SEBI chief had a stake in obscure offshore entities used in the Adani money siphoning scandal. Therefore, Congress is also demanding the resignation of SEBI chairperson.

Earlier, in its investigative report released on January 24, 2023, Hindenburg Research said that the Adani Group and its chairman Gautam Adani have engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades. The report accused Adani of commiting one of the biggest corporate frauds in the world. 

In its latest report, Hindenburg has quoted whistleblower documents to reveal that SEBI – which was supposed to investigate the Adani scam case – has shown little interest to explore Adani’s alleged undisclosed web of offshore shell entities in Mauritius or other places.

Hindenburg states that its January 2023 report exposed a web of offshore – primarily Mauritius-based – shell entities used for suspected billions of dollars of undisclosed related party transactions, undisclosed investment and stock manipulation by the Adani Group. It also said that the Adani Group was operating “the largest con in corporate history”. 

In a vaguely written statement issued on August 11, 2024, SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch called it an attempted “character assassination” by Hindenburg in response to SEBI action. However, this statement does not refute any of the accusations made by Hindenburg in its reports.

With a standard statement, the Adani Group on August 11 also rejected the latest report by Hindenburg Research as “recycled claims”.

SUPREME COURT FAILURE IN ADANI CASE

As the Supreme Court of India has become a toothless outfit, it has failed once again to deliver justice in the money laundering and accounting fraud case of the Adani Group.

In its judgment of January 3, 2024, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India D. Y. Chandrachud said there were no grounds to transfer the probe to a special investigation team (SIT).

[ Video: You can click here to watch a related video. ]

The court relied on the opaque and sketchy investigation conducted by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) which – like the Supreme Court – is a complicit organization trying to exonerate the Adani Group and its chairman Gautam Adani.

It was reported in January 2024 that SEBI had investigated 22 of the 24 cases in the Adani case and the Supreme Court had given it three more months to complete the investigation. But so far the SEBI probe findings have not been made public.

In his tweet on January 3, 2024, Gautam Adani celebrated the Supreme Court decision with his remarks, “Truth has prevailed. Satyameva Jayate” with the apparent indication that he has been exonerated in the case.

But oligarch Gautam Adani did not mention that the Supreme Court and other law-enforcement agencies are protecting him unscrupulously because he is a partner of India’s prime minister (PM) Narendra Modi who himself is allegedly involved in a number of corruption cases. 

These cases include the PM-CARES Fund case, Rafale corruption case, Sri Lanka energy project case involving Adani Group, Modi-Adani collusion case, Sahara-Birla payoff case, and a number of other cases in which Modi’s party colleagues are allegedly involved. 

In fact, the Modi-Adani collusion case is termed as the Modani (portmanteau for Modi and Adani) corruption scandal, which is perhaps the biggest grand corruption crime in the history of mankind.

In this case, it is alleged that Gautam Adani colluded with Modi for about two decades to plunder India’s public assets. Since the Indian courts, law-enforcement agencies, and media houses cannot dare to investigate or report about the Modi-Adani collusion case honestly, some foreign publications have been covering the stories of this corruption scandal involving billions of dollars.

Surprisingly, however, the Supreme Court ignored all the investigative reports of credible media organizations and acquitted Adani and his allegedly illicit businesses without holding a fair and transparent investigation.

Now, with some sporadic protests – mostly on Twitter – Congress is demanding the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to investigate the Adani scandal.

However, the Modi government has always refused to form any JPC in the past because Congress is a very weak party which exists only on Twitter and its feeble protests have no impact on Modi.

By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society.