On March 2, Supreme Court constituted a six-member committee in the Adani-Hinderburg case. Supreme Court judge Abhay Manohar Sapre will head the committee. The other five members appointed by the apex court are Om Prakash Bhatt, Justice JP Devadhar, KV Kamath, Nandan Nilekani, and Somasekhar Sundaresan. The committee has been asked to submit a report in two months.
Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre has an experience 20 years of practising civil, constitutional and labour law at the Madhya Pradesh High Court. Earlier, he also served as Chief Justice of the Guwahati High Court and as the first Chief Justice of the Manipur High Court.
Om Prakash Bhatt is the former chairman of the States Bank of India. He serves as an independent director on the boards of multiple MNCs, including Tata Steel Limited, Hindustan Unilever Limited, and Tata Motors and serves as a non-executive chairman in multiple companies. He is also the chairman of the Indian Banks’ Association.
Justice JP Devadhar was chairperson of the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) for five years from July 2013. He practised law at the Bombay High Court in 1977.
KV Kamath is an Indian Banker who has worked with ICIC Bank. He has been in various positions, including chief of the New Development Bank of BRICS countries and chairman of Infosys. Kamath’s name was involved in the high-profile ICICI Bank fraud case by CBI and ED, as per the Pgurus report.
Nandan Nilekani is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Infosys Technologies Limited. He was also the founding chairman of UIDAI in the rank of Cabinet Minister. In January this year, he was appointed as co-chair of the G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure for Economic Transformation, Financial Inclusion and Development”. Nilekani contested Lok Sabha elections from Bangalore South constituency in 2014 and lost to BJP’s Ananth Kumar by over 2,00,000 votes.
Somasekhar Sundaresan worked as a journalist in his initial years. He has served as a committee member set up by the central government, SEBI and Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Somasekhar is also a board member of Oxfam India. Notably, Oxfam India has a tendency to work against the central government. On the international platform, Oxfam International is one of the front runners that have worked against the Adani Group in countries like Australia, where the company is investing in coal mines.
This is Big
— Vijay Patel🇮🇳 (@vijaygajera) March 2, 2023
In the committee appointed by SC Other than two Infosys members one member of the committee to investigate Adani is Somasekhar Sundaresan is a board member of the British anti-India NGO Oxfam.
Same Oxfam which is funding activism against adani in Australia and India pic.twitter.com/Vt5pdft0gq
Sundaresan’s name was proposed to be elevated by the Supreme Court as High Court Judge. However, the central government objected to it because of his highly biased opinions on social media. Later, the SC reiterated his name in January this year. In January this year, Oxfam India published a dubious report on how taxpayers are divided among income sections. OpIndia’s report on it can be read here.
