Articles by Advait Rao Palepu

The publishers of the Economic & Political Weekly wish to retract the article “Modi Government's Rs 500 Crore Bonanza to Adani Group Company,” authored by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Advait Rao Palepu, Shinzani Jain and Abir Dasgupta, in EPW, Volume 52, Issue 24, 2017. The article, as published, failed to meet the standards of EPW and did not go through the EPW editorial review process. Hence, the Editor was advised to withdraw this article on 18 July 2017.

The authors would like to clarify that the first paragraph in the “Conclusions” section (p 40) should have read as follows: “The DRI filed an appeal against the CESTAT order in the Supreme Court on 6 April 2016, which was eventually disposed of on 22 July 2016. The Ministry of Finance now has to file a review petition against this decision. The question that remains unanswered: what has dissuaded the ministry from filing this review petition even though more than five months have gone by?” This is the corrected version of the article.

The corporate conglomerate headed by Gautam Adani has been accused by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence of having allegedly evaded taxes and laundered money to the tune of around ₹1,000 crore while trading in cut and polished diamonds and gold jewellery. The DRI has claimed that companies in the Adani Group misused export incentives and indulged in high-velocity circular trading through a complex web of front companies located in different parts of the world. The government seems strangely reticent about filing a review petition in the Supreme Court that could protect its revenue interests.