India’s Adani Group yesterday called US charges that their billionaire tycoon founder Gautam Adani had paid more than $250mn in bribes “baseless”, as the opposition leader demanded his arrest.
The stiff denial came after shares in the industrialist’s conglomerate nosedived more than 23% in Mumbai, the morning after a bombshell indictment in New York accused him of deliberately misleading international investors.
Adani, once the world’s second-richest man, is a close ally of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and critics have long accused him of improperly benefiting from their relationship.
“The allegations made by the US department of justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission against directors of Adani Green are baseless and denied,” the conglomerate said in a statement. “All possible legal recourse will be sought,” it added.
But Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi said the businessman should be taken into custody.
“We demand that Adani be immediately arrested. But we know that won’t happen as Modi is protecting him,” Gandhi told reporters in New Delhi.
“Modi can’t act even if he wants to, because he is controlled by Adani.”
Wednesday’s indictment accuses Adani and multiple subordinates of paying huge sums of more than $250mn in bribes to Indian officials for lucrative solar energy supply contracts.
The deals were projected to generate more than $2bn in profits after tax over roughly 20 years.
None of the multiple defendants named in the case are in custody.
Adani and two other board members of his Adani Group “lied about the bribery scheme as they sought to raise capital from US and international investors”, US attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
The conglomerate’s renewable energy subsidiary, Adani Green Energy, said it had decided to halt a planned bond sale “in light of these developments”.
Gautam’s nephew and board member Sagar Adani, who is also named in the indictment, said in October that there was “no political connection” between Adani Group and the Modi government.
“All the projects we got have not been granted by any concession but through an independent and transparent auction system,” he said.
Modi’s government has yet to comment on the charges but a spokesman for his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Amit Malviya, said the indictment appeared to implicate opposition parties rather than his own. “Don’t get needlessly excited,” Malviya wrote on X.

Kenya drops airport deal

Kenyan President William Ruto yesterday said he had ordered the cancellation of a procurement process that had been expected to award control of the country’s main airport to India’s Adani Group after its founder was indicted in the US. Under the proposed deal to expand the main Nairobi airport, Adani was to add a second runway at the Jomo Kenyatta international airport and upgrade the passenger terminal. “I have directed agencies within the ministry of transport and within the ministry of energy and petroleum to immediately cancel the ongoing procurement,” Ruto said in his state of the nation address, attributing the decision to “new information provided by investigative agencies and partner nations”.