Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) building.
Credit: DH File Photo
New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday demanded that Parliament's Public Accounts Committee investigate the Life Insurance Corporation following a Washington Post report that the public sector company made huge investments in Adani Group's securities after they took a beating in the markets.
However, the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) denied the allegations as "false, baseless, and far from the truth".
Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh alleged the savings of LIC's 30 crore policyholders were "systematically misused" to benefit the Adani Group.
In a statement, Ramesh said disturbing revelations have just emerged in the media about how the "Modani joint venture systematically misused the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and the savings of its 30 crore policyholders".
The opposition party's attack came after The Washington Post, citing internal documents, reported that Indian officials drafted and pushed through a proposal to invest about Rs 33,000 crores of LIC funds in various Adani Group companies in May 2025.
Markets regulator SEBI cleared the Adani Group of stock manipulation allegations made by US short-seller Hindenburg Research, saying fund transfer between group companies did not fall foul of any regulation. The SEBI probe was initiated after intervention by the Supreme Court.
In a statement posted on X, the LIC said the allegations levelled by the Washington Post that its investment decisions were influenced by external factors are "false, baseless, and far from truth".
"No such document or plan as alleged in the article has ever been prepared by LIC, which creates a roadmap for infusing funds by LIC into Adani group of companies. The investment decisions are taken by LIC independently as per Board approved policies after detailed due diligence," the LIC said.
The Department of Financial Services or any other body does not have any role in such decisions, it said.
LIC has ensured the highest standards of due diligence and all its investment decisions have been undertaken in compliance with extant policies, provisions in the Acts and regulatory guidelines, in the best interest of all its stakeholders, the statement said.
There was no immediate response from the Adani Group on the Congress' allegations.
Taking a swipe at the government over the issue, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the real beneficiaries of the government's Direct Benefit Transfer initiative "are not the common people of India, but Modi's best friends".
"Does the average salaried middle-class person, who pays every penny of their LIC premium, even know that Modi is using his savings to bail out Adani? Isn't this a breach of trust? Isn't it loot?" Kharge said in a post in Hindi on X.
The Congress president asked if the Modi government would answer why LIC money was invested in Adani's companies, and Rs 33,000 crore was planned to be invested in May 2025.
Even before this, in 2023, despite a more than 32 per cent decline in Adani's shares, why was Rs 525 crore of LIC and SBI invested in the Adani FPO, he asked.
"Why is Modi busy filling the pockets of his 'best friend', looting the hard-earned money of 30 crore LIC policyholders?" Kharge said.
In his statement, Ramesh said, "Internal documents reveal that Indian officials drafted and pushed through a proposal to invest about Rs 33,000 crores of LIC funds in various Adani Group companies in May 2025."
The reported goals were to "signal confidence in the Adani Group" and to "encourage participation from other investors", he said.
"The question arises: under whose pressure did the officials of the Ministry of Finance and NITI Aayog decide that their job was to bail out a private company facing funding difficulties due to serious allegations of criminality? Is this not a textbook case of 'mobile phone banking'?" Ramesh said.
The Congress leader said the costs of "throwing public money at crony firms" became clear when LIC suffered "a staggering Rs 7,850 crore loss" in just four hours of trading on September 21, 2024, following the indictment of Gautam Adani and seven of his associates in the United States.
"Adani has been accused of orchestrating a Rs 2,000 crore bribery scheme to secure high-priced solar power contracts in India. The Modi government has refused, for nearly a year, to serve a US SEC summons to the prime minister's most favoured business conglomerate," Ramesh said.
The Congress has been persistent in its attack on the government since the Adani Group stocks took a beating on the bourses in the wake of a report by Hindenburg Research, which made a litany of allegations.
The Adani Group has dismissed all charges made by the Congress and others as lies, saying it complies with all laws and disclosure requirements.
Ramesh further claimed, "The Modani MegaScam is very wide-ranging. For instance, it encompasses: The misuse of agencies such as the ED, CBI, and Income Tax Department to force other private companies to sell their assets to the Adani Group."
He also alleged that there was "rigged privatisation" of critical infrastructure assets such as airports and ports for the benefit of the Adani Group alone.
Ramesh pointed to alleged misuse of diplomatic resources to funnel contracts to the Adani Group in various countries, especially in India's neighbourhood.
He said the scam also encompasses the import of "over-invoiced coal by close Adani associates Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli and Chang Chung-Ling" using a money-laundering network of shell companies, which contributed to sharp increases in the prices of electricity drawn from Adani power stations in Gujarat.
Ramesh also pointed to pre-election electricity supply agreements at "abnormally high prices" in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra and the recent alleged allocation of land at Rs 1 per acre for a power plant in poll-bound Bihar.
"The entirety of this Modani MegaScam can only be investigated by a Joint Parliamentary Committee of Parliament that the INC has been demanding for almost three years - ever since we published our 100-question series Hum Adani Ke Hain Kaun (HAHK).
"As a first step, now at least Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) should fully investigate how LIC was literally forced to make investments in the Adani Group," Ramesh said.
That will be well within its powers, he added.