By K Raveendran
Yet another demonstration of the extent of Adani’ group’s stranglehold on the Establishment should shake the confidence of group’s detractors who have been driven to desperation by the acts of commission and omission by the controversial group known to be a favourite of prime minister Narendra Modi.
Even the highest court of the land has expressed consternation at the abrupt deletion of an Adani-related case by the Supreme Court registry from the list scheduled for the day. Senior counsel Dushyant Dave, representing the opposite side, objected to the arbitrary omission, and complained to Justices Aniruddha Bose and P.V. Sanjay Kumar hearing the petition, that he was told by the registry officials that the action was in the wake of ‘instructions’ from above’.
Justice Bose, heading the bench, then summoned a registry official to the chamber and directed him that the case be listed as the top item for the next day. There have been similar dramatic instances when important cases have been suddenly stuck off the list, obviously ‘under instructions’, thus subverting the delivery of justice. It is to be noted here that hearing in a corruption case involving a serving chief minister has been postponed over 30 times, allegedly through manipulation of registry listing.
‘Instructions from above’ is a highly disturbing phenomenon in the functioning of constitutional institutions and challenges the whole process of governance and delivery of justice, particularly when it comes to preferred parties. This is what puts a question mark over the Establishment’s response to criticism and allegations against the Adani group. Unfortunately, this also applies to the outcome of some of the judicial challenges against the group. In this context, the latest Supreme Court verdict in the petitions against the adequacy of the SEBI probe into the charges against the Adani group in the wake of the findings by the Hindenburg report has also attracted criticism in the sense that the needle of suspicion has gone towards the US entity rather than the group itself.
It is common knowledge that the Indian market regulator SEBI has been going the extra mile to protect the interests of Adani group rather than safeguard the interest of the market and the retail investors, the avowed key mission of the regulator. Whenever there is a clash between the two, SEBI has taken the side of the group.
When SEBI was called upon to investigate the alleged stock manipulations by the Adani group as revealed by the Hindenburg report, the regulator produced a wishy-washy report, saying the investigations are a highly time-consuming process and has been seeking repeated time exemptions from the courts.
For instance, SEBI told the Supreme Court that it has not finished collecting details of ‘economic interest shareholders’ of 12 Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) which are public shareholders of the Adani Group companies. It further took cover under the argument that many of the entities linked to these foreign investors are located in tax haven jurisdictions, making it a challenge to establish such economic interest shareholders.
SEBI has managed to pull the wool on the eyes of both the judiciary as well as the public through this argument. In fact, the latest Supreme Court verdict in the batch of petitions challenging the adequacy of the SEBI investigations has granted the market regulator another extension of three months to conclude its so-called ‘investigations’.
Wittingly or unwittingly, the court has asked the Modi government to examine whether there has been any infraction of law by the Hindenburg report on short selling instead of examining questionable practices by the group. Such a stand, however, suggest that the court has fallen into the trap of the approach of shooting the messenger. By asking the Modi government itself to investigate if there are misdeeds by the Adani group, the Supreme Court has provided a fait accompli to the government to give a clean chit to the group.
A similar clean chit to SEBI, proclaiming that there has been no regulatory failure on the part of the market regulator has disappointed the group’s detractors, who believe SEBI has been undertaking a cover-up operation at the behest of ‘instructions from above’. One does not need to master rocket science to find out where these instructions actually come from. And this is what makes the influence of India’s leading group all the more worrisome. (IPA Service)
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