On Friday (May 19), a Supreme Court-appointed expert committee, led by retired judge Justice AM Sapre, has essentially given a clean chit to the Adani group in the much-hyped Hindenburg report controversy.
The committee found that the Adani Group did not engage in price manipulation and took the necessary procedures to reassure retail investors. It also did not find evidence of repeated artificial trading, violation of Minimum Public Shareholding (MPS) compliances or a clear pattern of abusive trading.
Adani Group-Hindenburg | At this point, no violation found on MPS (Minimum Public Shareholding) compliances. Committee has clearly stated that the regulator hasn't been able to prove that its suspicion can be translated into a firm case of prosecuting an allegation of violation
— ANI (@ANI) May 19, 2023
The development comes amidst the ongoing efforts by the Congress party and its nefarious ecosystem to cast aspersions about the integrity of the Indian conglomerate.
Just today, the official Twitter handle of the Congress posted a photoshopped image to target businessman Gautam Adani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “I can’t take my eyes off you”, it tweeted alongside a picture of PM Modi staring at Adani’s portrait.
This is not surprising, given that their party leader Rahul Gandhi had time and again accused the Modi government of indulging in crony capitalism and helping his ‘corporate friends’ without any shred of evidence.
The Congress ecosystem struck gold when a US-based short seller namely Hindenburg Research made outrageous claims about the Adani Group and accused it of artificially inflating its stock price.
While the Indian conglomerate was quick to rubbish the allegations, the grand-old party and its cabal of activists and journalists exploited the opportunity to their advantage. Insinuations were openly made about the involvement of the ruling BJP dispensation in the alleged ‘scam.’
This was despite the fact that the Congress party themselves awarded several contracts to the same Adani Group in States such as Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Kerala.
Congress party and its disdain for Indian businesses
One would expect a national party like the Congress to make amends, following the ‘clean chit’ given to the Indian conglomerate by the Supreme Court-appointed expert committee. However, it is unlikely to happen for a number of reasons.
For the Congress ‘socialist’ ecosystem, Indian businessmen such as Gautam Adani and Mukhesh Adani are ‘evil capitalists’ who are somehow working in cahoots with the government to exploit the poor people.
As such, the Adani Group is a prop for the Congress party and its stooges to create hysteria in the minds of the public about the dealings of the Modi government. This also gives an additional advantage to Congress to falsely project itself as ‘pro-poor.’
Tendency to discover non-existent scams – Rafale Deal
The Congress-ruled era was marred with scams, totalling a whopping 4.82 lakh crores of public money. As such, the grand old party has the tendency to re-imagine ‘scams’ in every governmental transaction.
One of the most notable cases was that of Rafale jet procurement. Congress scion Rahul Gandhi had taken it upon himself to present a distorted version of the defence deal to the public. He had infamously coined the elitist slogan ‘Chowkidar Chor hai‘ to mock PM Modi’s humble beginnings and accuse him of receiving kickbacks.
In November 2018, Rahul Gandhi challenged Prime Minister Modi to a debate on Rafale. He had also falsely claimed that the government had removed then CBI Director Alok Verma to stop him from probing the Rafale deal.
At one point, the Congress President had claimed in the Lok Sabha that the French President had told him personally that there was no secrecy pact between the two countries which prevented the government from discussing the terms and price of the Rafale jets.
The French government then issued a statement which essentially proved that Rahul Gandhi lies on the floor of the Parliament. They stated that the secrecy pact was signed in 2008 (during UPA regime, AK Antony being the defence minister) whose provisions also apply to the deal of 36 Rafale aircraft and their weapons which was signed on 23rd September 2016.
Rahul Gandhi had also alleged that Reliance will benefit by US$ 4 billion, approximately the entire offset amount. Later, he added US$ 16 billion for “Rafale lifecycle Contract” that Reliance was supposed to get.
The Congress also relied on a French NGO, Sherpa, which registered a complaint against the Rafale deal to peddle their narrative. But, as it turned out, it has been accused previously of filing motivated lawsuits to destroy the reputations of firms and gain media attention and funds. And as Opindia had reported, the NGO is partners with George Soros’ Open Society, Misereor and Oxfam among others.
Congress-friendly media conjectured a scam
The Congress party was aided, in part, by friendly journalists in the media, notably The Hindu newspaper, which cropped a Ministry of Defence (MoD) document to cast aspersions on the Rafale Deal.
Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, N Ram, the Chairman of Kasturi & Sons Limited and publisher of The Hindu, desperately tried to create an anti-Modi wave by manufacturing a ‘defence scam’ in the Rafale deal.
On February 8, 2019, The Hindu had published a note from a defence ministry official who had objected to the Prime Minister’s office inquiring about the progress of the deal.
This was despite the fact that the officer was not involved in the negotiations of the deal. The Hindu wanted to project that there was opposition to the Rafale deal in the defence ministry and only the Prime Minister was pushing for it.
In doing so, the newspaper had cropped a vital part in the same document, a note by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. The then defence minister had written that the officer was overreacting, and offices of Indian PM and French President were just monitoring the progress of the deal.
Immediately after the Hindu report, ANI had published the full document, which had proved that N Ram had used a cropped version of the document in his article. About 10 days after the incident, The Hindu came up with a clarification, saying that it did not doctor the document.
In its column Readers Editor, it has claimed that the document published by it was an earlier version, which didn’t include the Defence Minister’s note. As proof of the same, the newspaper had noted that the document published by ANI had serial numbers on each note, while there were no serial numbers on the document published by The Hindu.
To hide the evidence of Parrikar’s note, the Hindu cropped the document in two places, and even digitally erased part of a stamp that should have been visible even after cropping the same.
And its claim that it did not doctor the document turned out to be false, because a date stamp before the defence secretary’s note was clearly removed from the document.
Rahul Gandhi and his propensity to lie despite apex court rulings
Despite all-out efforts of the Congress ecosystem and Rahul Gandhi in particular, the Supreme Court found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the Indian government in the Rafale defence deal.
The French and the Indian Governments and Dassault have time and again issued clarifications on the matter. And yet, Rahul Gandhi along with his friends in the media created a narrative on the basis of half-truths and complete lies.
With nothing left to save face, Rahul Gandhi went on to lie that the Supreme Court has somehow vindicated his stance of ‘Chowkidar Chor hai.’ The Congress scion had to cite an unconditional apology, later on, to get away.
But this did not stop the ecosystem from bringing up the settled case of Rafale defence procurement and alleging ‘corruption’ time and again.
Given the party’s past record, it is safe to conclude that it will not stop hurling unsubstantiated accusations at the Adani Group in the near future (despite the clean chit by the SC expert committee).
