In January 2020, Indian news media reported that a cloud of uncertainty hung over the future of Adani’s power project at Godda. Provincial elections had just been held and a new government had been elected in the state of Jharkhand. Spokespeople for the new government were quoted saying that they would take a fresh look at the approval for Adani’s power station because of the controversial confiscation of farmers’ lands.
Not very long before the $5.7 billion (Rs 43,000 crore) investment in Reliance Jio by social media giant Facebook was announced, Mukesh Ambani and his family members shuffled their shares within the family. While this may have led to a notional gain in the value of the shares, a response sent through his lawyer asserted that since the share transactions were a transfer within the family and family entities no profits or losses can be made.
A group of customers of Tata Housing has taken the company to the country’s top consumer court, alleging a number of irregularities in the developer’s La Montana project located on the outskirts of Pune.
In an FIR filed on 15 January by the CBI, three senior officials of the public sector company National Cooperative Consumer Federation have been accused of criminal conspiracy to manipulate tender proceedings to ensure that Adani Enterprises won a 2010 contract to supply imported coal to the Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation. A regular case has been registered under sections of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act against the officials and Adani Enterprises.
A court in Haryana has ordered summons through arrest warrants of two employees of Tata Housing Development Company in a case involving whistleblower Nityanand Sinha.
Recently, the Adani group unveiled a cross-cultural art installation titled ‘Gondwana’ – a work by Gond adivasi and Warlpiri indigenous artists from India and Australia at its Ahmedabad headquarters. Is this a bid to whitewash the damage being inflicted on adivasis in Chhattisgarh and indigenous peoples in Australia?
In an affidavit before the Delhi HC, clarifying the status of its probe, DRI has specified that it will appeal Bombay HC’s decision curtailing its powers to seek information from foreign countries in pursuit of its investigation into the Adani group.
Some things to remember amidst this WhatsApp hack sensation: The government may not actually have in any records, data on who all have been targeted for illegal surveillance and accessing of their devices. Such unauthorised surveillance – conducted by private contractors – is never directly contracted by police/IB etc. Front organisations, like the one that issued the invitations to European MEPs to visit Kashmir, set up by individual officials via their proxies are the ones that contract the surveillance contractors.
A Bombay High Court order in a case relating to alleged over-invoicing of coal imported from Indonesia by a company in the Adani group threatens to undermine the capabilities of India’s investigative agencies and should be challenged.
