In the case related to Gautam Adani, the US Justice Department has defended the decision to dismiss the case. Legal experts termed the DoJ’s reply as adequate and said that the quality of the evidence and the case being related to India were the main reasons for its rejection.
new york [अमेरिका]July 6 (ANI): With the US Department of Justice (DoJ) defending its decision to seek dismissal of its case against Gautam Adani and others, legal experts have said the reply is inadequate and raises questions on the quality of evidence presented to bring the case.
Expert calls DOJ’s response adequate
US-based attorney, partner at WMD Law and former Assistant US Attorney Benjamin A. Gianforte says the response submitted by the DoJ is sufficient for the judge’s purposes. He said, “My take on the letter is that it’s probably more than enough for the judge’s purposes, because it explains in some detail all the reasons why the department decided to withdraw from this case, including everything from it being inconsistent with current priorities to concerns about the quality of the evidence. So, even though they attacked the judge for asking for this information in the first part of the letter, I think they did enough to convince the judge that “The case is being dismissed for good reason. And so, I mean, the judge can do whatever he wants, but I don’t think the government has provided enough information for the judge to make a decision at this point.”
DOJ gave the reason for dismissing the case
The US Justice Department said in its response that forcing prosecutors to explain their reasoning in detail could undermine constitutional authority over prosecutorial decisions. Prosecutors say the alleged affair took place in India and it was not appropriate for US prosecutors to get involved.
‘Priorities change with change of administration’
Benjamin A. Gianforte told ANI, “The way I look at this prosecution is that reasonable people can have different opinions about whether this prosecution should have been brought or not. I mean, it’s true that when administrations change in this country, priorities will change, and this administration, for example, decided to reduce enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits foreign bribery. If there are substantial U.S. ties to that conduct. And again, reasonable people can have different opinions about how much and how aggressively we should enforce a particular set of laws, so I think the DOJ was within its rights to decide not to pursue this lawsuit any longer, and they gave a number of good reasons why they decided to step back from it now.”
He added, “They’re essentially saying, look, Mr. Judge, if you force us to disclose all of our internal decision-making about whether or not to prosecute, that’s going to make it less likely that we’ll actually re-evaluate prosecutions in the future and potentially withdraw from them… What the DOJ is saying is that it’s in the best interest of the defendants to let the internal deliberations remain private and privileged, but I’m not even sure that That the court was asking for so much information here.”
Weakness of evidence became a major reason
The US DoJ had argued in its response that the case was weak due to problems with the evidence. She further said that most of the alleged evidence was based in India, making US prosecution difficult.
Benjamin A. Gianforte told ANI, “There are certainly circumstances where the Justice Department will prosecute individuals who have very little chance of being caught, so, for example, you might have an oligarch sitting in Russia whom they charge with criminal offenses, while they have no realistic possibility of actually getting their hands on that person and arresting him. There are still good reasons to bring these kinds of prosecutions, if it’s a significant priority for the Justice Department, or if there is clear evidence of a crime having been committed.”
What was the whole matter?
The case against Gautam Adani and others alleges a bribery scheme involving solar energy contracts in India, which allegedly misled US investors. In May this year, the US DoJ had taken a step to reject these allegations, after which the US Court of the Eastern District of New York had sought a response from the DoJ.
With that response strengthening the U.S. DoJ’s position, legal experts argue that the judge will likely support the DoJ’s stance. (ANI)
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet News editorial staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)