Listen to this article:

In late March 2026, two Indian courts delivered sharply contrasting signals on corporate fraud. On March 23, a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant reprimanded the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED). It found their “reluctance” in investigating alleged banking fraud by the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) unacceptable. It directed a fair, transparent and time-bound probe. On March 27, a Bombay high court division bench headed by Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar took the opposite approach. It dismissed a petition seeking a CBI probe into bribery allegations against Adani Green Energy. The bench termed it an “abuse of the process of the court” and declined to examine what was placed before it.

The Supreme Court pushes back on agency inaction

In E.A.S. Sarma v. Union of India (W.P.(C) No. 1217/2025), a PIL, filed by former Government Secretary E.A.S. Sarma and argued by well-known Advocate Prashant Bhushan, the petitioner sought a court-monitored investigation into alleged loan frauds exceeding Rs 40,000 crore by ADAG firms. These included Reliance Communications (RCOM), Reliance Home Finance and Reliance Commercial Finance. The PIL contended that the CBI’s FIR, registered on August 21, 2025, covered merely a fraction of the wrongdoing. On February 4, the court had already directed the ED to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT). It had also directed the CBI to probe the possible collusion of bank officials. Anil Ambani had undertaken to remain in India unless the court permitted him to travel.

At the March 23 hearing, before a bench that also included Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M. Pancholi, the exchanges were pointed. Solicitor general Tushar Mehta informed the bench that the SIT had been constituted. He stated that assets worth Rs 15,000 crore had been attached and four persons arrested. The bench found the pace wanting. It observed that the agencies’ reluctance was “not acceptable” and that the investigation “must inspire confidence not only in us but everybody.” Bhushan pointed to a Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) report identifying a scheme to siphon off money. He highlighted that RCOM, despite debts of Rs 47,000 crore, had been sold for Rs 430 crore to a company belonging to Anil Ambani’s brother. The CJI remarked: “The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code is being misused like anything.” The total estimated wrongful loss across ADAG entities was pegged at approximately Rs 73,000 crore.

The court directed both agencies to complete the probe in four weeks. It held that “senior functionaries of the investigating agencies must join hands and make vigorous attempts to unearth the irregularities/illegalities and the connivance of public functionaries.” All financial institutions were directed to cooperate fully with the ED. Anil Ambani, meanwhile, filed a supplementary affidavit seeking to reframe the matter as a commercial dispute. He cited the Sandesara family settlement as a precedent. The bench declined to engage with the proposal.

The Bombay high court declines to examine the evidence

In Jitendra Punamchand Maru v. CBI (Criminal Writ Petition No. 6214 of 2025), the Bombay high court dismissed a petition by Jitendra P. Maru, a Silvassa-based social activist. Maru had sought a direction to the CBI to register an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The petition concerned an alleged bribery scheme involving Adani Green Energy and Azure Global Ltd. The scheme purportedly involved payments of over Rs 2,000 crore to DISCOM officials in four States to secure solar power purchase agreements at inflated tariffs.

Maru relied on certified copies of a US Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment and a parallel SEC civil enforcement complaint. On November 20, 2024, the DOJ had charged Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and others with securities and wire fraud conspiracy. The SEC alleged a bribery scheme involving hundreds of millions of dollars paid to Indian government officials. The material included references to “bribe notes” allegedly maintained by Sagar Adani and seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Adani Group has denied all these allegations as baseless. It has stated that its executives face securities and wire fraud charges, not charges under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The five-page order confined itself entirely to the petitioner’s credentials. The bench found that Maru lacked bona fides, locus standi, and clean hands. His counsel conceded that the petition was based on a “newspaper report which published the order passed by the US Court.” The bench faulted Maru for failing to approach the court “in the last about one decade.” It also recorded that a similar petition had been dismissed by the Delhi high court on March 10, 2026.

In paragraph 7, the bench offered a sweeping generalisation. Such petitions, it observed, are typically “filed at the behest of the failed competitors or a rival business house or a disgruntled person.” This hypothesis was applied without any specific finding against Maru. He was a former plastics trader with no connection to the renewable energy sector.

Two standards of scrutiny

The two cases admittedly occupy different procedural terrain. The petitioner in the Anil Ambani case was a former government secretary, represented by an advocate of national standing. The petitioner in the Adani case was a social activist from Silvassa with no disclosed credentials. The Supreme Court was supervising an ongoing investigation with FIRs, arrests and attachments. The Bombay high court was being asked to direct the registration of an FIR in the first instance. The material before the Supreme Court included sealed status reports, a SEBI report and forensic audit findings. The Bombay high court had only certified copies of US court records.

Maru’s profile offered legitimate grounds for scepticism. He filed two identical petitions against two corporate groups on the same day. He made no disclosures as required by Bombay high court Rules. His counsel conceded that the petition was triggered by newspaper coverage. The Supreme Court itself has cautioned against misuse of PIL jurisdiction. These are not trivial procedural deficiencies.

But these distinctions only partly account for the Bombay high court’s approach. The “one decade” delay objection is factually unsustainable. The US indictment was unsealed only in November 2024. Maru filed complaints with the CBI in October 2025. Characterising the petition as based on “newspaper reports” understates the evidence. A US federal indictment is a product of a multi-year investigation by the DOJ and the FBI. It is qualitatively different from an anonymous tip. The order also ignores the CBI’s inaction on the October 2025 complaints. And the Delhi high court’s observation that the US proceedings indicated no loss to the public exchequer was recorded without scrutiny. Inflated tariff agreements with publicly funded DISCOMs would, if proved, constitute precisely such a loss.

The Supreme Court treated the Anil Ambani charges as a matter of serious public concern. It pushed the agencies to act with vigour. It insisted that the probe follow the trail upward and inspire public confidence. The Bombay high court treated the Adani bribery claims as a reputational threat to a corporate group. It focused on the petitioner’s profile rather than the evidence before it. The Supreme Court saw through Anil Ambani’s attempt to recharacterise fraud charges as a commercial dispute. The Bombay high court offered a broad judicial generalisation about PIL petitioners being proxies for business rivals. It did so without grounding that inference in the facts of the case.

The result is a system in which initiation of investigation depends on the identity of the petitioner. The strength of the underlying evidence appears secondary. The Bombay high court’s order leaves a substantive question unanswered. Do Indian law enforcement agencies have an independent obligation to investigate bribery involving Indian public officials? Does this obligation arise when a foreign government has investigated the matter and placed the material in the public domain?

That the Bombay high court referred to the corporate group merely as “an Indian Corporate group” throughout its order is telling. Senior advocate Harish Salve appeared for the respondent through video conferencing. The distance between the order’s studied reticence and the gravity of what it was called upon to consider could scarcely be greater.

The two orders, separated by four days, offer a study in judicial asymmetry. One court demanded accountability from investigating agencies. The other shielded a corporate group from scrutiny by demanding credentials from a citizen petitioner.

© The Wire