U.S. DoJ says Adani case should never have been brought, urges judge to drop charges permanently
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has forcefully defended its decision to abandon the criminal case against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and seven others, telling
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has forcefully defended its decision to abandon the criminal case against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and seven others, telling a federal judge the prosecution was legally flawed, diplomatically counterproductive and inconsistent with the Trump administration’s enforcement priorities. In a sharply worded 10-page filing, the DOJ said the case “should have been dropped a year ago — or never brought in the first place,” arguing that the court had only a limited role in reviewing its decision to dismiss charges with prejudice. Also read: Gautam Adani agrees to $18 million penalty in U.S. bribery case The filing came after U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis asked the department to explain why it was seeking to permanently dismiss the indictment, calling its earlier motion “terse, bland, and conclusory”. The DOJ had in 2024 under the Biden administration indicted Adani and others for allegedly being involved in a scheme to bribe Indian government officials to the tune of $250 million and to lie to investors to receive billions more in investments from other entities — during which alleged scheme Adani Green Energy Limited raised at least $175 million from U.S. investors. The DOJ said requiring prosecutors to publicly justify decisions to drop cases would discourage future dismissals, expose privileged internal deliberations and infringe on the executive branch’s constitutional authority over charging decisions.
“Judicial inquisitions into the bases for dismissal will expose privileged internal debates,” Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter wrote, adding that such a demand hurt defendants by potentially chilling the Department from seeking dismissal of criminal charges it determines are not in the interests of justice. Also read: U.S. Judge won’t immediately dismiss criminal charges against Gautam Adani Waiving privilege only for this case, McCotter said he decided to dismiss the charges after months of meetings with defence lawyers, reviewing hundreds of pages of submissions and conducting his own legal analysis. “The decision to seek dismissal was not a close call,” he wrote. The department cited six overarching reasons for dropping all charges, including that the alleged conduct was overwhelmingly centred in India, Indian authorities had investigated the allegations and found no actionable misconduct, investors suffered no financial losses, key evidence and witnesses were located abroad, the defendants were unlikely to ever appear before a U.S. court, and the prosecution faced significant evidentiary hurdles. “This is a foreign case,” McCotter wrote. The indictment is about “several Indians (with maybe a European or two) allegedly trying to bridge other Indians by paying the Indian government via complex Indian rebate programs to get Indian contracts to provide Indian electricity to Indians in India.” “The United States pretending to be the world police can cause diplomatic strife and also wastes resources better spent on domestic concerns.
The BriefWire