US charges could lead to arrest warrants, extradition bid: NY-based attorney

With the US filing civil and criminal charges against billionaire Gautam Adani and seven others over a multi-million-dollar bribery scheme, a prominent attorney in New York has said that the case could escalate significantly, potentially leading to arrest warrants and even extradition attempts.

“US Attorney Breon Peace has the right to get arrest warrants issued against Adani and seven others indicted and serve them on the nations where they reside,” Indian-American attorney Ravi Batra told PTI on Thursday (November 21).

He further said, “If that nation, as India does, has an extradition treaty, then according to the bilateral contract between sovereign nations, the resident nation must turn over the person extradited by the United States. There is a process that the resident nation must comply with, consistent with its laws.”

Batra noted that ultimately, extradition occurs “absent the rarest of circumstances”, as in the case of former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet. The United Kingdom did not extradite him solely on humanitarian grounds.

"It’s hard to see the Pinochet precedent apply to this case involving Adani and seven others," he said.

The India-US Extradition Treaty was signed in 1997.

In a statement on Wednesday (November 20), Peace said the defendants orchestrated an “elaborate scheme” to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars and Adani, Sagar and Jaain “lied about the bribery scheme as they sought to raise capital from US and international investors”.

Batra said the US law “develops very long arms when our capital markets are involved...While the eight-charged defendants have constitutional presumptive innocence, that evaporates if an honest and thoughtful defence, if one exists, is not proffered skillfully".

According to the US Justice Department, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prohibits paying foreign officials to influence actions, induce unlawful omissions, or secure improper advantages.