Law Ministry has not yet served notice to Adanis: US SEC to Court

For the fifth time in eight months, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a status report with the Eastern District of New York, saying that India’s Ministry of Law and Justice has not served notice to industrialists Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani. In a two-page letter filed on December 12, SEC counsel Christopher M Colorado informed Magistrate Judge James R Cho that the agency has made no concrete progress in serving the defendants.

“The SEC has been in periodic contact with India’s MOLJ (Ministry of Law and Justice) and understands that they have not yet effected service….  The SEC’s efforts to serve the Defendants are ongoing and it will keep the Court informed of its progress,” said SEC Counsel to the Court.

The SEC has delivered the summons through diplomatic channels to India’s Law Ministry as per the Hague-Service Convention. The US Commission first reached out to Indian authorities in February 2025, nearly three months after filing the complaint on November 20, 2024.

In its status report in April, the SEC said that the Indian Government had finally acknowledged the request. “Since the February Status Update, the India MoLJ has confirmed to the SEC that it received the SEC’s request for assistance under the Hague Service Convention and that it has, in turn, requested that the relevant judicial authorities within India attempt to serve the Summons and Complaint on Defendants,” the SEC wrote.

In November 2024, Adani, along with two executives — his nephew Sagar Adani and colleague Vineet Jaain — was accused of paying more than $250m in bribes to Indian officials to secure solar energy contracts.

The biggest contract and bribery’s major portion were in Andhra Pradesh’s solar power equipment. The bribe payments, made over four years from 2020 to 2024, were expected to generate $2bn in profits. Adani’s Group-linked US-based firm Azure was involved in this controversial deal in the solar sector in India.