Adani Group Claims to Have Proof of Conspiracy to Damage Its Reputation; Moitra Fires Back

The Adani group claimed on Monday that it has proof of its assertion that certain individuals and organisations were "working overtime" to damage the company's reputation and position in the market by citing a lawyer's complaint to the CBI against Mahua Moitra, the MP for Trinamul.

Moitra called the Adani group's media statement "lame" and threatened to keep pressing the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI to look into the conglomerate's alleged over-invoicing of coal imports.

The Adani group, in a statement from Ahmedabad, cited the Supreme Court lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai's complaint to the CBI, which claims that Moitra and Darshan Hiranandani, the CEO of the Hiranandani group, "specifically targeted" Gautam Adani and his group of companies through parliamentary questions, "the commission of an elaborate criminal conspiracy."

In addition, the complaint claims Moitra was given "bribes and undue favours from" Hiranandani.

"This development corroborates our statement of 9 October 2023 that some groups and individuals have been working overtime to harm our name, goodwill and market standing," the statement read.

"In this particular case, the lawyer's complaint reveals that this arrangement to besmirch the reputation and interests of the Adani Group and our Chairman Mr. Gautam Adani has been in place since 2018."

In addition to sending legal notifications to Dehadrai, Moitra also quoted the Adani group's statement and posted a riposte on X. Nishikant Dubey, a BJP politician, has filed a complaint with the Lok Sabha Speaker, citing the lawyer's charges against the Trinamul member.

"Mr. A, is this pathetic remark the best you could do? Relying on the lies of a spurned ex and a fake degree MP? I refuse to stop till @dir_ed, @CBItweets look into and put an end to the ₹13000 cr coal scam that you have taken from Indian people. Even Hon'ble @narendramodi, I've been told, is tired of you and your scams," she added.

In a post, she asked "A company" three questions.

"Three anxious inquiries The following press release from a company must respond to: 1. When you overbill ₹ 13000 crores of coal using a Chinese national, a UAE national, and three offshore corporations, where is the national interest? 2. In what way does it serve the interests of the country when you manipulate IOCL and GAIL in the ₹46500 crore Dhamra LNG deal without holding a tender? Does obtaining coal mines in Rajasthan without a tender serve your country's interests? 3-Where is the national interest in allowing your benami FPI assets to manipulate the market with lakhs of crores of dollars, according to Moitra?

Additionally, Moitra confronted Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Union minister of state for electronics and technology, after the latter published on X that "this Parliamentary Question was likely asked by an MP at the behest of a Data center company" in response to a parliamentary question (PQ) Moitra had posed on data localization.

"If true, this is shocking and shameful," he had continued. It is accurate to say that this business was pushing for data localization quite hard and energetically. The language used when the head of this company met me was quite similar to that used at PQ (relating the necessity for data localization to data breaches). I don't know all the details or backstory on this, but if it's true, it's a horrible abuse of PQs and travesty.

Moitra made a swift return. "This is a valid question for all Indians," she remarked, highlighting her membership in the JPC on data protection and the parliamentary panel on information technology. Can't a hostile country steal user data kept abroad for India users if they can obtain info from apps? Do not disparage my intelligence by implying that I am putting up a front. What the bag men from Ruia do.

The final passage seems to be a reference to Chandrasekhar selling BPL Mobile to the Ruias of Essar fame when he was an entrepreneur.

Additionally, Moitra made a public request to Ashwini Vaishnaw, the minister of information technology, for the release of all MPs' CDR (call data record) locations and login credentials.

"MPs' whole parliamentary workload is completed by big teams, interns, and PAs. Respected @ashwinivaishnaw, kindly provide the location and login information for EVERY MP that has a CDR. Please make information about the staff's login training public," she wrote.

Moitra allegedly gave Hiranandani and his group access to her login details for the Lok Sabha website "so that they could utilize it for their own personal gain," according to Dubey's protest to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. This "poses a direct threat to national security," he had added.

The accusations of "bribe for question" have been rejected by the Hiranandani group as having "no merit."

"We have never been involved in the political sphere; rather, we have always been in the business world. According to a spokesman, "Our group has always worked with the government in the interest of the nation and will continue to do so."

Real estate tycoon Niranjan Hiranandani is the father of Darshan Hiranandani. On the group's website, it states that Darshan holds a BS in management information systems and an MBA in entrepreneurship and finance. He is in charge of the company's energy operations in India and internationally as well as its real estate ventures in Dubai.

According to his Twitter account, he is chairman of Tarq Semiconductors, Yotta Data Services, H-Energy, and Tez Platforms in addition to being the CEO of the Hiranandani group.