NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India’s foreign ministry said on Friday that bribery allegations against billionaire Gautam Adani is a legal issue between private firms and the U.S. Department of Justice and that New Delhi has not received any request on this case from Washington.
The comments were the first official reaction from the Indian government to the indictment of Adani, the chair of Indian conglomerate Adani Group and one of the world’s richest people, and came more than a week after it was unsealed in New York.
U.S. authorities accused Adani, 62, his nephew and executive director Sagar Adani and managing director of Adani Green, Vneet S. Jaain, of being part of a scheme to pay bribes of $265 million to secure Indian solar power supply contracts, and misleading U.S. investors during fund raises there.
The ports-to-power conglomerate denied the charges as “baseless” and vowed to seek “all possible legal recourse”.
“This is a legal matter involving private firms and individuals and the U.S. Department of Justice,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters at a weekly media briefing. “There are established procedures and legal avenues in such cases which we believe would be followed.”
The Indian government was not informed in advance about the indictment and is not part of the “conversation” at this point, Jaiswal said.
Any request by a foreign government for service of summons or arrest warrant is part of mutual legal assistance and India has not received any request on this case from the U.S. side, he said, adding that “such requests are examined on merit”.
The indictment has sparked political wrangling in India as many Indian opposition parties accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of favouring Adani and blocking investigations against him in India, accusations both have denied.
While the government had not made any comment on the indictment so far, Modi’s BJP has said it had no reason to defend Adani and that the law will take its course.
(Reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar and Shivam Patel; Editing by YP Rajesh)
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