Blocked by Modi govt for 14 months, US SEC moves court to serve summons to Adani through email
New Delhi: The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has approached a federal court in New York seeking permission to bypass diplomatic channels and serve summonses on industrialist Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani through their US-based lawyers and email, after India challenged the SEC’s authority to issue the summonses.
In a motion filed on Wednesday, January 21, before the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the SEC said it no longer expects service to be completed under the Hague Convention, effectively abandoning the treaty route it has been pursuing since February 2025. The case is being heard by Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis.
“The SEC does not expect service to be completed through the Hague Convention,” the regulator stated in its filing, adding that nearly a year of exchanges with India’s Ministry of Law and Justice had failed to yield results. The SEC said it was unaware of any alternative method of serving the summonses under Indian or international law.
The move marks a significant shift in the SEC’s 14-month effort to formally notify Gautam Adani, Chairman of Adani Green Energy Ltd, and Sagar Adani, its Executive Director, of civil charges linked to a September 2021 bond offering. The offering raised approximately $175 million from US investors as part of a larger $750 million issuance.
According to the SEC, the diplomatic impasse became clear after it received letters from India’s Ministry of Law and Justice on December 14, 2025, dated November 4. These letters cited Rule 5(b) of the SEC’s internal procedures and stated that the summonses did not fall within the categories covered by that rule. The ministry’s objection, which was attached as an exhibit to the SEC’s motion, appeared to question the regulator’s authority to issue the summonses.
The SEC rejected this reasoning as unfounded, arguing that Rule 5(b) has no relevance to service of documents under the Hague Convention. “This objection has no basis in the Convention, which governs service procedures, not the SEC’s underlying authority to bring enforcement actions,” the agency told the court. It added that the ministry’s position seemed to suggest that the SEC lacked authority to invoke the Hague Convention itself, despite the regulation cited having no bearing on treaty procedures.
This was the second time the Indian ministry declined to execute the service request. In April 2025, it had returned the documents unserved, citing the absence of seals and signatures. The SEC responded by stating that the Hague Convention does not require either a seal or a forwarding letter. It also noted that it had successfully served similar requests on Indian authorities in the past, including as recently as December 2024, using identical formats.
The SEC said it resubmitted the request on May 27, 2025, clarifying the treaty requirements, but received no response. Follow-up inquiries sent by its Office of International Affairs in April and September 2025 also went unanswered.
In light of this, the SEC has now asked the court to permit service under Rule 4(f)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which allows alternative methods when conventional channels fail. The regulator is seeking approval to serve the summonses and complaint through the Adanis’ US counsel and via their business email addresses, arguing that this would ensure effective notice.
Sagar Adani is represented in the matter by Hecker Fink LLP. An attorney from the firm confirmed his representation on December 4, 2024. Gautam Adani has retained Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP. Lawyers from these firms contacted the SEC on February 28, 2025, identifying themselves as counsel for Gautam Adani in connection with the case.
“Service on Defendants’ established counsel is therefore virtually guaranteed to provide notice to defendants,” the SEC said in its memorandum.
The agency also sought permission to serve the summonses by email, stating that its investigation had uncovered more than 100 documents showing Sagar Adani’s use of his corporate email account for Adani Green Energy business, including communications related to the bond offering and others dated as recently as March 2024. It said similar records showed that Gautam Adani regularly used his corporate email for business communications, including correspondence linked to Adani Green, and that the address was listed as his contact email in filings with India’s securities regulator.
“Both addresses are reasonably believed to remain active and monitored,” the SEC said.
The civil case stems from a complaint filed by the SEC on November 20, 2024, alleging that Gautam and Sagar Adani orchestrated a bribery scheme involving payments or promises amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars to Indian government officials. According to the regulator, the bond offering materials contained statements about Adani Green’s anti-corruption and anti-bribery practices that were materially false or misleading in light of the alleged conduct.
On the same day, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York filed parallel criminal charges against the Adanis and others, including securities fraud conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy and securities fraud.
The Adani Group, in a statement issued on November 21, 2024, rejected the allegations as baseless and said it would pursue all available legal remedies.
In its latest filing, the SEC also pointed to public statements and regulatory disclosures made by the Adanis to argue that they are fully aware of the proceedings. It cited remarks made by Gautam Adani in November 2024 and June 2025 claiming that no one from the Adani side had been charged with violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or obstruction of justice.
“Defendants have demonstrated their actual knowledge of this action through public statements, regulatory filings and retention of US counsel,” the SEC said, adding that the defendants were actively managing their response to the litigation.
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Govt should take Oppn into confidence, restore India's role as credible voice for peace: Congress
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress urged the BJP-led Centre on Friday to take the opposition into confidence, and urgently recalibrate and adopt a unified national approach to restore India's historic role as a principled, proactive and credible voice for peace.
The opposition party welcomed the ceasefire between the United States and Iran as a vital step towards de-escalation, renewed diplomacy and constructive dialogue and ultimately, lasting peace in West Asia.
In a resolution adopted at a Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting held at the Indira Bhawan here, the party said the targeted assassinations of heads of state, waging war in violation of international law and attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are unconscionable crimes against both humanity and a rules-based world order.
"Any meaningful resolution must be anchored in the principles of the Geneva Conventions, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Charter -- particularly the prohibition on the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State (Article 2 [4]) and the peaceful settlement of disputes (Article 2 [3])," the Congress said in the resolution.
The document said this pause also provides an opportunity to assess the costs for India.
In the recent past, India's energy security has been undermined, the country's ties across its extended strategic neighbourhood have been strained, its role as a net security provider in the Indian Ocean Region has weakened and its moral leadership within the Global South has eroded, it noted.
"Equally worryingly, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government's myopic, xenophobic and unprincipled internationalism has not only alienated India from its neighbours, but also undermined decades of painstaking efforts by successive Indian governments to diplomatically isolate Pakistan.
"By ceding strategic and diplomatic space, the BJP government has handed Pakistan the room to rehabilitate its global image, and whitewash its track record of fomenting regional instability through support for cross-border terrorism targeting India, Afghanistan and Iran," the resolution read.
The Congress said the government's "incompetence" has allowed Pakistan to claim a pivotal role in the great power competition in Asia, which will also give Islamabad leverage over New Delhi on crucial bilateral issues through third-parties, effectively internationalising India-Pakistan matters.
"Given the unprecedented polycrisis we face, the BJP government must stop subordinating the national interest to electoral and ideological considerations, and disregarding the counsel of India's foreign policy establishment.
"Instead, the BJP government must take the Opposition into confidence, urgently recalibrate and adopt a unified national approach to restore India's historic role as a principled, proactive and credible voice for peace and a just international order," the resolution adopted at the CWC meeting read.
It said successive governments since 1947 have upheld global principles, drawing on a foreign-policy tradition rooted in "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" (the world is one family), Mahatma Gandhi's doctrine of "Ahimsa" (non-violence) and former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's policy of non-alignment.
This commitment is also enshrined in Article 51 of the Constitution, which calls for respect for international law and treaty obligations, it said.
In keeping with this legacy, India has consistently and constructively intervened against apartheid in South Africa, in the Korean War through the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission, in its support for anti-colonial movements across Asia and Africa, as a principled voice of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Global South, reflected in sustained diplomatic efforts to resolve numerous conflicts, such as in Hungary, Egypt, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc., and from its contributions to humanitarian relief and United Nations peacekeeping operations, the resolution said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Israel ahead of the war created the perception of a political endorsement of military escalation and of an incumbent far-right government on the eve of that country's national election, the CWC said.
Both incidents underscored the inherent risks in the conflation of diplomatic engagement with electoral politics and the fundamental principle that relationships are between countries, not between individual leaders or ideologically-aligned political parties, it added.
