The Supreme Court’s decision not to transfer the probe into allegations of stock price manipulation by the Adani group to the Central Bureau of Investigation or to a special investigation team, instead giving an additional three months to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), is “extraordinarily generous”, the Congress said on January 3, asserting that its fight against “crony capitalism” would continue even more “forcefully”.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also termed the judgement as “disappointing” and “unfortunate on several counts”.
Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said that SEBI had failed to complete its investigation even ten months after the Supreme Court’s expert committee had asked it to do so. “It is unclear what will change in the next three months other than the Model Code of Conduct for the Lok Sabha elections coming into effect,” he said.
‘SEBI mandate is limited’
Industrialist Gautam Adani had reacted to the judgement, saying it showed that “Truth has prevailed. Satyameva Jayate.” Mr. Ramesh remarked, “Truth dies a thousand deaths when we hear Satyameva Jayate from those who have gamed, manipulated and subverted the system this past decade.”
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The Congress leader also pointed out that SEBI’s mandate is limited to violations of securities regulations. “It will not, for instance, look into how the Modi government [is] manipulating bidding conditions over the objections of the NITI Aayog and Finance Ministry to hand Adani a complete airports monopoly, and has misused the ED and CBI to force critical national assets into the hands of the PM’s cronies,” he said. The SEBI investigations will also not probe whether the PM forced the State Bank of India to sign an MoU to lend Mr. Adani US$1 billion over a lunch meeting, Mr. Ramesh said, or how the Modi government has forced important neighbouring countries to hand over critical projects to “the PM’s favourite businessman”.
“Our fight for NYAY against crony capitalism and its ill-effects on prices, employment and inequalities will continue even more forcefully,” he added.
Media exposes
It is concerning that SEBI has asked for extension after extension, while the media has produced exposé after exposé, Mr. Ramesh said. He listed out a few of these revelations, including the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project’s expose on the actual ownership of two of the 13 benami shell companies that SEBI has failed to identify despite years of “investigation”.
Chang Chung-Ling and Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli held 8% to 14% of benami holdings in Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Adani Power, and Adani Transmission, he alleged. This was via shell companies in Mauritius, UAE and British Virgin Islands in blatant violation of SEBI’s minimum shareholding laws, Mr. Ramesh claimed.
On October 12, 2023, the Financial Times had reported how coal trading firms controlled by Chang Chung-Ling and Mohamed Ali Shaban Ahli siphoned out ₹12,000 crore by over-invoicing coal imported by the Adani Group to Mundra Port in Gujarat, the Congress leader added.
‘License to shoot the messenger’
“The two exposés established a clear link between money flowing out from the pockets of Indian coal utilities and electricity consumers and the funds flowing into Adani Group companies, in complete violation of SEBI rules relating to minimum ownership as well as stock manipulation,” Mr. Ramesh claimed.
The CPI(M) Polit Bureau said that SEBI, a statutory body, has not been fulfilling its mandate to expeditiously probe the allegations. “It is most unfortunate that the judgement has given an open licence to the government to probe whether Hindenburg Research’s allegations ‘ignored Rules and to take action accordingly, in other words to shoot the messenger, which would jeopardise all those media outlets which had published the Hindenburg report,” Polit Bureau commented, adding that the Supreme Court has not enhanced its credibility with this judgement.
