NEW DELHI: Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh on Saturday fired three more questions at Prime Minister Modi relating to his businessman friend Gautam Adani.
Here are the questions:
(1) Home Minister Amit Shah stated in a 17 March 2023 interview that anyone who has evidence of wrongdoing relating to the Adani Group is free to submit it to the Supreme Court-appointed ‘Expert Committee’ that was set up on 2 March 2023.
To remind you, the mandate of the committee is:
(a) to provide an overall assessment of the situation including the relevant causal factors which have led to the volatility in the securities market in the recent past;
(b) to suggest measures to strengthen investor awareness;
(c) to investigate whether there has been regulatory failure in dealing with the alleged contravention of laws pertaining to the securities market in relation to the Adani Group or other companies;
(d) to suggest measures to (i) strengthen the statutory and/or regulatory framework; (ii) secure compliance with the existing framework for the protection of investors.
(1) Clearly, the expert committee’s mandate excludes the main charge against you: that you have sought to enrich your close friend and financier Gautam Adani at any cost. That you have pressurised regulators and investigative agencies to turn a blind eye to blatant wrongdoing by your cronies, be it money-laundering via shell companies or dubious associations with Chinese nationals accused, among other things, of illicit trading with the China- and Pakistan-allied North Korea. And that you have compelled the centre, state governments and foreign governments to steer business towards the Adani Group, granting it monopolies in ports, airports, defence and other critical sectors at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. Why then is the Home Minister, your close political ally, misleading the people of India? By misrepresenting the limited mandate of the Expert Committee, are you both preparing the ground for a cover-up?
(2) The Expert Committee has no formal jurisdiction over investigations by SEBI and any other investigative agency. It lacks the power to enforce summons, to compel the production of evidence or to cross-examine witnesses, and statements before it do not have the same force in terms of evidentiary value as a court of law. At most, the Supreme Court has requested the SEBI chairperson to “ensure that all requisite information is provided to the Committee” and asked that “all agencies of the Union Government including agencies connected with financial regulation, fiscal agencies and law enforcement agencies” cooperate with it. We would like to remind you that Chief Justice CV Ramana reportedly stated on 25 August 2022 that your government refused to cooperate with the committee investigating the illegal use of Pegasus malware in India, setting a disturbing precedent. Given this history, is it not obvious that the only way to comprehensively investigate the Adani scam is through a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) with appropriate powers? Is it not obvious that any committee other than a JPC, whatever its merits, will be reduced to an exercise in legitimation and exoneration?”
(3) Even with its limited mandate, we pray that the Expert Committee’s report, which is scheduled to be submitted in two months time in a ‘sealed cover’, does not meet the same fate as previous such reports. The Pegasus report is yet to see the light of day even though it was submitted in July 2022. What is the guarantee that the same fate does not await the report into the Adani scam? Does this not call, once again, for a JPC to ensure that all the relevant aspects are taken into account?
