Congress reiterates demand for JPC after fresh revelations on Adani Group

Mumbai: The Congress on Thursday reiterated its demand on the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) after the Adani Group found itself entangled in a fresh allegation brought forward by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a charge denied by the group.

Addressing a press conference here, ahead of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive alliance (INDIA) bloc third meeting, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said, “In November 2014 in Australia’s Brisbane 9th G20 Summit took place. And there Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the G20 that there should be international support to fight the black money, against those accumulating black money and those who are behind the money laundering, shell companies across the country and the tax heavens. And he demanded that the G20 need to show its strength.”

Referring to the G20 being held in India, Ramesh, who is also the party’s communication in-charge said that after nine days 18th G20 summit will take place in Delhi and today in all the newspapers whether its from the US, UK and Indian national newspapers an expose has appeared that how a favourite friend of the Prime Minister has used the shell companies.

“And All the rules and regulations of SEBI were neglected and bypassed,” the Congress Rajya Sabha MP said.

He further said that former party chief Rahul Gandhi will address an important press conference at 5 p.m. Thursday and will speak in detail about the same.

Ramesh further said that from January 28 till March 28 the Congress asked 100 questions to the Prime Minister.

“And we raised three questions everyday and asked him to break his silence. We demanded that rules and regulations were bypassed and there was no transparency in investment and shell companies were used.

“And Rs 20,000 crore was found in shell companies of Adani group and there is no information of that. Rahul Gandhi spoke about it in Lok Sabha on February 7 and a few days later he was disqualified as an MP. Rahul Gandhi suffered for four months as he remained disqualified,” Ramesh said.

The Congress leader also said, "We had demanded for a single thing that is the formation of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).

“There is only one way to know the truth, that is JPC and we reiterate the demand of JPC. This proves one thing that our institutions have failed, rules flouted and law is being bypassed. This is happening despite the government knowing all this, and we are demanding for a JPC and a probe starts,” he added.

The remarks came after the OCCRP report alleged that "opaque" funds were used to funnel substantial investments into the publicly traded stocks of the Adani Group, purportedly masking the involvement of business partners associated with the Adani family.

The Adani Group has rejected the OCCRP report alleging stock manipulation.

“We categorically reject these recycled allegations. These news reports appear to be yet another concerted bid by Soros-funded interests supported by a section of the foreign media to revive the meritless Hindenburg report. In fact, this was anticipated, as was reported by the media last week,” the Group said.

“These claims are based on closed cases from a decade ago when the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) probed allegations of over invoicing, transfer of funds abroad, related party transactions and investments through FPIs.

“An independent adjudicating authority and an appellate tribunal had both confirmed that there was no over-valuation and that the transactions were in accordance with applicable law. The matter attained finality in March 2023 when the Supreme Court of India ruled in our favour. Clearly, since there was no over-valuation, there is no relevance or foundation for these allegations on transfer of funds.

“Notably, these FPIs are already part of the investigation by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). As per the Expert Committee appointed by the Supreme Court, there is no evidence of any breach of the Minimum Public Shareholding (MPS) requirements or manipulation of stock prices," it added.

As per the report, exclusive documents obtained by OCCRP and shared with the Guardian and Financial Times, including files from multiple tax havens, bank records, and internal Adani Group emails, shed light on that very matter.

These documents, which have been corroborated by people with direct knowledge of the Adani Group’s business and public records from multiple countries, show how hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in publicly traded Adani stock through opaque investment funds based in the island nation of Mauritius, the report said.