Gautam Adani, one of India’s most prominent businessmen, has been indicted by US prosecutors for bribing Indians and hiding that from American investors thus misleading them while taking their money. Broadly, it is also an indictment of how business is projected to be conducted in India with kickbacks suspected to have been paid to various parties inside the government and outside, as alleged.
As an oil to ports and airports conglomerate that globally handles very large infrastructure projects, Adani’s enterprises must subject themselves to regulatory mechanisms of many countries. With the group’s businesses going global, the companies must abide by universal norms rather than expect to be subject only to India’s slothful regulatory mechanisms.
As the justice department of the US government as well as its securities regulator are involved in making grave criminal charges, the matter is far more serious than the time when the same business group was attacked by a speculative stock market short seller who charged it with round tripping money to boost stock prices and such other sharp practices with the use of money flow from tax havens.
In the interests of transparency and to convince ourselves that the Indian system is not tainted by the handing out of large bribes in excess of Rs 2,000 crores to personalities in charge of government — whether “officials” are netas or bureaucrats — India must also set up a probe into this matter and be prepared to go by the evidence presented to the US regulators and courts to determine if there has been wrongdoing on our soil.
A few governments have been named whose “officials”, presumably including netas and babus, were said to have been the beneficiaries of kickbacks. It would be incumbent upon the government that such charges be probed by Indian regulatory and investigative agencies to determine the truth. The Indian public needs to be convinced that this is not just some foreign hand involved in putting down Indian commercial interests.
It is a fact that very large infrastructure projects are funded by governments far more than the private corporate sector. And, given the scale of investments and the risks involved for investors in getting a fair return for their capital, there is plenty of room for suspicion over the paying of bribes for favourable action aiding commensurate returns.
The suspicions are probably even weightier than the facts revealed so far. It is also true that most action under the US securities regulator has been in the form of fines and naming of companies and individuals who may then be left struggling to raise funds or indulge in speculative activity using money from the United States where the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act aims to provide a fair and level playing field for all businesses.
What may happen when the Trump regime is in place can only be speculated upon now. It is the right of the Adanis to expect to go through the process of inquiry along with their legal defence teams and establish the innocence they have been projecting. But, until then, they cannot expect not to be probed in India. Because their greasing of palms is said to have taken place in India, they must expect to face probes in their home country too.
