Narendra Modi government in India is in hot water, after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed that it has approached New Delhi under the Hague Service Convention for assistance in investigation against Adani and Sagar Adani in a bribery case Last year, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn unsealed an indictment accusing Adani of bribing Indian officials to convince them to buy electricity produced by Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary of his Adani Group conglomerate, and then misleading US investors by providing reassuring information about the company's anti-corruption practices. 

The SEC made this revelation before a federal judge investigating the matter.  The SEC submitted a status update on Tuesday to Judge Nicholas Garaufis at the United States District  Court, Eastern District of New York regarding its efforts to serve its complaint on Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani.  The SEC said that both Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani “are located in India, and the SEC’s efforts to serve them there are ongoing, including through a request for assistance to the Indian authorities to effect service under the Hague Service Convention for Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters. 

The SEC said that its complaint dated November 20 last year alleges that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani violated the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws by “knowingly or recklessly making false and misleading representations concerning Adani Green Energy Ltd in connection with a September 2021 debt offering by Adani Green.  It said that because the “defendants are located in a foreign country, Rule 4(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) governs service of the Summons and Complaint. 

The SEC update, submitted by its Counsel Christopher Colorado, cited a case which notes that service via the Hague Service Convention is one permissible means of serving defendants located in India. “Since the filing of its Complaint, SEC staff has been working to serve Defendants in accordance with FRCP 4(f). SEC staff has contacted Defendants or their counsel (to the extent SEC staff is aware of such counsel) and has sent them Notices of Lawsuit and Requests for Waiver of Service of Summons, including copies of the Complaint.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)