New York [US], August 11 : Legal experts have described the US federal court's decision to dismiss criminal charges against Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani as a highly significant development, emphasising that the dismissal "with prejudice" permanently closes the case and bars prosecutors from ever reviving it.
Commenting on the ruling, Benjamin A Gianforti, a US-based lawyer told ANI, "I think it is very significant that the judge dismissed the charges against Adani and the other so-called appearing defendants. In other words, the defendants whose lawyers made an appearance in the case, and he dismissed those charges with prejudice, which under the US legal system means that these charges based on this conduct can never be brought again."
Addressing the institutional ramifications for American federal prosecutors, Gianforti added, "The broader legal impact could be just that the Department of Justice will have to be more careful when they decide to dismiss a case, that they actually have to have good reason to do so. The thing that I found kind of shocking about all of this is that Judge Garaufis was able to go through every single justification that the Department of Justice offered and just say, like, that doesn't make sense, but eventually he found one thing that made sense to him, and that was enough. From my perspective as a former prosecutor, this whole episode is fairly embarrassing for the Department of Justice because this should have been a pretty easy thing for them to accomplish, but they just continued to shoot themselves in the foot over and over again... Hopefully, what will happen here is the department will get its ducks in a row before it decides to take such drastic action."
Echoing similar sentiments on the conclusive nature of the verdict, Raian Karanjawala, Managing Partner of Karanjawala & Company, told ANI, "...I had given an interview a few weeks ago while this case was pending. At that time, I had said that the Department of Justice in America would be given permission by the court to withdraw its prosecution, which is what it's really done... It is said that we are no longer interested in prosecuting this case. So that's exactly what had happened. The case now stands closed. It stands dismissed, and it cannot, and because it is dismissed with prejudice, it cannot again be revived in any form on these facts."
Elaborating on the commercial and broader legal implications of the court's order, Karanjawala noted, "The only broad legal impact is that the case that could have been pending against him in America is now closed. So there is no case against him. He is free to do business like any other person."
US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the Eastern District of New York had dismissed the charges after the US Department of Justice asked the court to dismiss them with prejudice, ending the high-profile case and bringing major legal relief to the Adani Group.
Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa described the order as "highly significant" for the group, particularly because the November 2024 indictment, in which US prosecutors accused Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani, and others of allegedly participating in a scheme to bribe Indian government officials over solar power contracts, had generated considerable negative publicity. The accused denied the allegations.
The US Justice Department's decision to seek dismissal marked a major shift in the prosecution. In May, the DOJ stated that it had reviewed the case and, exercising its prosecutorial discretion, decided not to devote further resources to the criminal charges. Although Judge Garaufis initially questioned the DOJ's earlier explanation and directed it to provide additional justification, the court ultimately approved the dismissal.
Reacting to the development, Gautam Adani said in a social media post, "I welcome the US court's decision with humility and deep respect for the judicial process."
The dismissal of the criminal case is separate from civil proceedings involving Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani before the US Securities and Exchange Commission, where the two had earlier agreed to pay civil penalties without admitting the allegations.