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New Delhi: A US federal judge has declined to immediately approve the Donald Trump administration’s request to throw out the criminal indictment against billionaire tycoon Gautam Adani and seven other defendants, directing the US Department of Justice (DOJ) instead to provide a detailed factual explanation for its abrupt decision to abandon one of its highest-profile foreign bribery prosecutions.

“The Government’s terse, bland and conclusory statement affords the court neither a sufficient basis to reach any conclusion, nor the opportunity to conduct any analysis of the Government’s request for dismissal,” Judge Garaufis wrote in an order released on Friday (June 26).

The US judge asserted that the DOJ had “failed to meet its obligation to supply adequate reasoning and sufficient facts” to justify dismissing the indictment. Without that information, he wrote, the court could not properly exercise its own discretion and instead “risks abusing its discretion in deciding the motion”.

He directed prosecutors to provide, by July 13, “each reason” for seeking dismissal of the indictment and “sufficient factual support for each basis” before the........

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