The US Department of Justice has strongly defended its decision to drop the criminal case against industrialist Gautam Adani and seven others, telling a federal court that the prosecution should never have been pursued.
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It argued that the case was legally weak, largely centred in India and no longer matched the Trump administration's enforcement priorities.
In a 10-page submission before US district judge Nicholas Garaufis, the Department said the court had only a limited role in reviewing its decision to seek dismissal of the indictment with prejudice.
The filing came after Judge Garaufis directed the Department to explain why it wanted to permanently withdraw the case, describing its earlier application as "terse, bland, and conclusory".
The case was originally filed in 2024 during the Biden administration. Prosecutors had accused Gautam Adani and others of participating in an alleged scheme involving USD 250 million in bribes to Indian government officials and misleading investors to secure billions of dollars in investments. During the period covered by the allegations, Adani Green Energy Ltd raised at least USD 175 million from US investors.
The Department argued that forcing prosecutors to publicly justify decisions to withdraw cases would discourage future dismissals, expose privileged internal discussions and interfere with the executive branch's constitutional authority to decide whether criminal charges should proceed.
"Judicial inquisitions into the bases for dismissal will expose privileged internal debates," Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General R Trent McCotter wrote, adding that such demand hurt defendants by potentially chilling the Department from seeking dismissal of criminal charges it determines are not in the interests of justice.
McCotter said that, after months of meetings with defence lawyers, reviewing extensive submissions and carrying out his own legal assessment, he concluded that the case should be abandoned. Waiving privilege specifically for this matter, he wrote, "The decision to seek dismissal was not a close call."
According to the filing, six key factors led to the decision to drop all charges. These included the fact that the alleged conduct was overwhelmingly based in India, Indian authorities had already examined the allegations without finding actionable misconduct, investors had not suffered financial losses, crucial witnesses and evidence were located overseas, the defendants were unlikely to appear before a US court and prosecutors faced significant evidentiary challenges. "This is a foreign case," McCotter wrote.
He further argued that the indictment concerned "several Indians (with maybe a European or two) allegedly trying to bridge other Indians by paying the Indian government via complex Indian rebate programs to get Indian contracts to provide Indian electricity to Indians in India."
"The United States pretending to be the world police can cause diplomatic strife and also wastes resources better spent on domestic concerns. India can better manage its internal systems than can prosecutors in Brooklyn and Washington," McCotter wrote.
The Department also contended that the criminal securities fraud charges against Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Cyril Cabanes lacked a proper legal foundation because the alleged conduct occurred almost entirely outside the United States and did not meet the jurisdictional requirements of US securities law.
It further argued that investors had suffered no financial loss because the notes involved had either been repaid in full or continued to be serviced. The filing also questioned whether the statements cited in the indictment could amount to criminal fraud, describing many of them as corporate "platitudes" and "puffery" that sophisticated institutional investors were unlikely to rely upon.
"The securities charges should never have been brought," McCotter wrote, adding that the allegations, at most, warranted civil rather than criminal proceedings.
The filing also stated that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges were no longer consistent with Justice Department policy following Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche's June 2025 memorandum, which instructed prosecutors to prioritise cases involving national security, transnational criminal organisations, serious misconduct or harm to US companies.
"The alleged conduct did not involve criminal organizations, did not have any effect on US companies, did not in any way implicate national security, was not egregious, and has been the subject of investigations in India," the filing said. "Under the Blanche Memorandum, the FCPA charges should have been dismissed a year ago."
McCotter also dismissed reports suggesting the case had been dropped in exchange for promised investments by the Adani Group in the United States, describing those claims as "false".
"I would have sought dismissal of the securities charges regardless of any mentions of investments," he wrote. "The mention of potential investments could not have played any role."
Urging the court to end the matter without further delay, the Department said prolonged judicial scrutiny only kept the defendants under unnecessary uncertainty despite the government's conclusion that the prosecution should not continue.
"In short, there was absolutely nothing improper with the Department's as-filed dismissal motion," McCotter wrote. "The defendants have been held in limbo on charges that should have been dropped a year ago -- or never brought in the first place."
