In a judgement that is expected to be pronounced before September 2, the Supreme Court will decide on a seven-year-long dispute between Rajasthan’s electricity distribution companies and a power generation company in the Adani group. The Adani group company stands to gain over Rs 5,000 crore if the judgement goes in its favour.
With less than a month to go before his retirement from the Supreme Court, Justice Arun Mishra is expected to pronounce the judgement of a three-judge bench he heads in a case concerning a company in the Adani group. This will be the seventh case involving Adani group companies heard by benches led by Justice Mishra since 2019, with the previous six judgements having gone in favour of the group. If the decision on the seventh case also goes in the Adani group’s favour, it would leave public power distribution utilities and consumers in Rajasthan poorer by around Rs 5,000 crore.
In July 2020, an ABC report brought the dispossession of Indian villagers for an Adani power plant to national attention in Australia. The power plant is located at Godda, about 400 km north of Kolkata. Upon completion, it is intended to be the destination for coal from Adani’s mine in Queensland. Here, AdaniWatch reports on the dirty tricks used to acquire the land farmed by indigenous people for generations.
An ancient way of life is threatened as coal mines destroy the forests of the Hasdeo Aranya, but the people are fighting back, taking control of local governments.
In India, a conflict between various state governments and the central Modi government is developing over Modi’s determination to proceed with a controversial auction of 41 coal blocks. In the state of Chhattisgarh, a proposed elephant reserve in the Hasdeo Aranya forest could prove crucial to whether coal mining in these biodiverse forests proceeds. But if the reserve is compromised to enable mining it will worsen human-elephant conflict for the indigenous Adivasis.
A number of significant changes in rules and regulations by the Indian government during the COVID-19 lockdown facilitated a rights issue of shares by Reliance Industries Limited.
A talk delivered online on Adani’s Godda power project
The decision of the central bank and banking regulator to increase the group exposure limit that banks have in calculating the quantum of loans given to a particular corporate conglomerate as a proportion of the total loans given by the specific bank, will benefit India’s biggest private company, Reliance Industries Limited. This is the fifth article in a series.
There has been a rush of stake sales in Reliance Jio to international investors. Questions relating to whether the government has addressed national security concerns while allowing these foreign investments remain unanswered. This is the fourth in a series of articles on India’s largest private corporate group.
