Two petitions filed in US courts by the Justice Department and market regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have created a situation where Gautam Ad., one of the richest men in the world, is charged with embezzlement and faces jail. Is. There is a big difference between the allegations made against Gautam Ad. by American short seller Hindenburg in January 2023 and the allegations presented in the court. Gautam Ad. was successfully acquitted on the basis of poor investigation by SEBI against those charges. But this time he will have to get a certificate that he is innocent against the harshest legal system in the world in America. It is certain that Ad. Group will have to go through the litmus test to prove itself innocent against this charge sheet. The indictments in the Justice Department’s criminal case and the SEC’s civil case in court include some shocking details. These details have been prepared based on FBI and SEC investigations, documents, and statements issued by the company. According to court documents, Gautam Ad. not only paid bribes, but also lied to investors and constantly put pressure on the country’s state governments to buy power.
Thus it was decided to pay bribe
The Solar Energy Corporation faced failure when it approached the state government and power distribution comp.es to find a buyer for the power as per the agreement. The corporation’s fixed power prices were very high and no state government was willing to buy power at such high prices for a long time. If no one is ready to buy electricity, there will be a loss of crores of rupees in solar module and cell production as well as in power plants. Secondly, the money raised from foreign investors by promising profits of two billion dollars per year has also been wasted. In such a situation, Ad. himself took the responsibility of selling electricity. After the state government’s refusal, power purchase contracts were obtained by paying bribes worth crores of rupees to government officials under the personal intervention, supervision and wiretapping of Gautam Ad. and nephew Sagar Ad..
Gautam Ad. held three meetings with Andhra CM and reached ‘agreement’
Gautam Ad., Sagar Ad., Vineet Jain and Ranjit Gupta planned to obtain power purchase contracts from state government power distribution comp.es. According to this scheme, bribes were to be paid to state government officials and power distribution comp.es to sign power purchase agreements. Ad. Group Chairman Gautam Ad. himself met the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh (Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy). Reddy lost the election in June 2024 and is now in the opposition but Gautam Ad. met him face to face in August 2021, September 2021 and November 2021. In this face-to-face meeting, there was talk of paying a bribe of 200 million dollars i.e. about Rs 1750 crore. Following the face-to-face meeting, Andhra Pradesh signed an agreement with the Solar Energy Corporation to purchase a total of 7 GW of power to be supplied from Ad. Green’s Gujarat project. Ad. Green also announced the world’s largest power purchase agreement in December 2021.
Why pay a bribe for solar energy?
Solar Energy Corporation of India is a company owned by the Government of India. This company is responsible for starting solar, wind and other projects in the country on a production basis as per the renewable energy policy of the Central Government. The responsibility of finding customers (state government power distribution comp.es or private buyers) for the power produced lies with the contract or power producer. The solar energy corporation has a role to play in providing the financing needed for the product. In 2019, the corporation invited bids for the production of cells and modules required for solar generation. Electricity was to be produced in exchange for this output and the corporation was responsible for finding the buyers needed to purchase that electricity. As per this policy, separate bids were invited for a total of 15 GW of manufacturing capacity (i.e. solar modules, cells and power generation plants). The corporation had shown readiness to purchase 12 gigawatts of power from the total production. Several comp.es submitted bids but the contract was ultimately awarded to US-based Azure Power and Ad. Green Energy. Both the comp.es were to jointly produce it. Azure announced in January 2020 that it had received a contract from Solar Energy Corporation to purchase 4 gigawatts of power and produce 1 gigawatt of module cells. In June 2020, Ad. Green announced that it had received a contract to build 8 GW of power and 2 GW of module cell plants. However, the solar power corporation was not obliged to buy Azure or Ad. Green which produce 4 and 8 GW of power respectively. For this, the corporation had to find a buyer of electricity and only if he was found, the sale of electricity was possible. As per the agreement, the power purchase agreement was to be concluded within 90 days of Azure and Ad. Green being selected for generation. But no buyers were found.
Ad. kept investors in the dark
Before it was awarded the contract for the world’s largest solar power project, Ad. Green was a small company. But, its aim was to become the world’s largest solar power producer by 2030. To achieve this goal, Gautam Ad. created the magic of price and differentiation. On the one hand, bribes were being paid to obtain signatures by supervising the nephew and, if necessary, personally pressurizing the power purchase agreement. On the other hand, funds were being raised from global investors to set up power plants and manufacturing capacity. Both things were going on parallel.
The directors and owners themselves have defrauded investors by paying personal bribes. They were giving promises in writing that they are not bribing anyone, they are doing very transparent administration. Ad. Green has given internal approval to issue debt bonds of $750 million in August 2021 and has started roadshows for potential investors. Gautam Ad., Sagar Ad., other board members or the comp.es never disclosed that the maximum power sales of Ad. Green’s largest solar power project at this time were based on kickback contracts. Not only this, the risk factors for investment are clearly mentioned in the risk of any complaint or investigation regarding bribery and punitive action against the company.
However, the company promised that Ad. Green Energy is against bribery and is not involved in any such activities. In fact, two top executives of the company – Gautam Ad. and Sagar Ad. – were personally bribing government officials in India to sign power contracts.
What is Ad. so India? Why is every allegation written against India?
Every allegation or allegation against Ad. should be investigated impartially instead of being countered in this manner
Hindenburg’s allegations against the Ad. Group were described by the company and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as anti-India. Every allegation leveled against Ad. Group from January 2023 is considered anti-national, treasonous or unruly in India which will not tolerate India’s development. Ad. is one of the millions of comp.es in India and hundreds of people including bureaucrats, sailors, other industrialists, businessmen, farmers have contributed to the economic development of the country. The basis of the allegations made in the American court is a specific document. Items including digital evidence are included.
At the time of Hindenburg, SEBI had also admitted that some promoter shareholding comp.es of Ad. Group were foreign, its authenticity was not possible due to being in tax havens. Although this was an allegation, no action was taken against him. India is a country of truth and non-violence. Since lying is a sin, every allegation or accusation against Ad. should be impartially investigated instead of being protested like this.
Sagar Ad. monitored bribe payments
Along with Gautam Ad., Ad. Green executive director Sagar Ad. and managing director Vineet Jain also played an active role in explaining to the governments of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Jammu and Kashmir the rights and how the bribe scheme would be paid to the power comp.es. . To buy electricity. According to the US court document, Sagar Ad. kept details of in which state the power contract was signed, how much power was purchased from which official, how much bribe would be given to him as per the power purchase, how much was paid. In an excel sheet. Apart from this, Sagar Ad. will also send this information to internal and important people through mobile messenger app. Sources are saying in hushed tones that these documents, digital records and some other things were seized when the FBI raided Sagar Ad.’s house during the investigation.
Ad. recovered third part of bribe from Azure
Quoting sources, it is reported that Gautam Ad. and Sagar Ad. informed the American company Azure that the bribery scheme is succeeding and state governments are now signing power contracts. According to the court document, Gautam and Sagar Ad. themselves had discussed at Ad. Group’s Ahmedabad head office that Azor would give one-third of its share of the bribe to Ad. under an unspecified condition following the success of the bribery scheme. Azure was once a US stock exchange listed company, no longer. The company was setting up four gigawatt solar power capacity in India with Ad. and was also awarded the Solar Energy Corporation jointly with Ad.. Azure is 50% owned by a Canadian pension fund.
If Azure does not pay the amount, it will hand over the power capacity to Ad.
It has also been said in the court that if Azure is not ready to pay the third part of the bribe amount, then Andhra Pradesh has to hand over Azure’s share of 2.3 gigawatt power to Ad.. In the document, Gautam Ad. himself has told this to the top officials of Azure.
In the meeting of Gautam Ad., Vineet Jain and Sagar Ad., it was decided to pay some amount for bribe through different transactions. Apart from this, as per the suggestion, it was also decided to hand over 2.3 GW capacity to Ad.. A letter has been written to Azure Solar Energy Corporation in December 2022 and February 2023 stating that it will not participate in the project for financial reasons. After all, Ad. announced in December 2023 that it would also power its share of Azure.
If the bribe taker is to be caught then the bribe giver must also be caught.
BJP said that at that time, in many states including Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, the government was not of BJP but of the opposition party, hence Congress should not protest much. However, BJP is not ready to give any other argument in this matter because it is expert in conducting raids against opposition parties like CBI, ED and other agencies. Politically, if opposition leaders are proved to be involved in taking bribes with Ad., it will only benefit BJP. But, since there is collusion between Ad. Group and the Central Government, the government will remain silent. The problem of the central government is that if the bribe taker is to be caught then the bribe giver will also have to be caught.
