The US Justice Department (DOJ) has made it clear before a federal court that its decision to shut down the criminal case against Indian industrialist Gautam Adani and seven others is entirely justified. The department bluntly told a federal judge that the prosecution rested on shaky legal ground, was diplomatically damaging to ties with India, and clashed with the Trump administration's enforcement priorities.
In a sharply worded 10-page filing, the DOJ argued that the case should have been ended a year ago, or should never have been launched at all. Its position is that once a decision has been taken to drop the charges completely, a court's role in reviewing that call becomes very limited.
The filing came after an order from US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who had asked the department to explain why it wanted the indictment dismissed permanently. The judge had described the department's earlier application as brief, dull and lacking any firm conclusion.
What the case was about
Back in 2024, under the Biden administration, the Justice Department levelled serious allegations against Adani and the others. It claimed they were part of a scheme to pay 250 million dollars in bribes to Indian government officials and lied to raise billions of dollars from investors. During this alleged scheme, Adani Green Energy Limited is said to have raised at least 175 million dollars from American investors.
Pressure builds if it is argued out
The Justice Department warned that if prosecutors are forced to publicly justify their decisions to withdraw cases, it would discourage the entire process of dismissing charges in the future. It would also expose the department's confidential internal deliberations and violate the executive's constitutional authority over charging decisions.
Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter wrote in the filing that if a court questions the grounds for withdrawing a case, the department's confidential internal discussions would be laid bare.
A hearing would not serve justice
McCotter added that such a demand also harms the defendants themselves. The reason, he said, is that it could make the department hesitant to move to drop criminal charges it does not consider to be in the interest of justice. He explained that he chose to set aside the confidentiality privilege in this case alone before deciding to withdraw the indictment. That decision, he said, came after months of meetings with defence lawyers, a review of hundreds of pages of documents and his own legal analysis. He also noted that the case involves Indian nationals who were working within India to secure contracts from the Indian government.
