Mumbai: Did a former special advisor to the British Prime Minister John Major in the early 90’s, once a high profile Tata Group executive who had passed out from the prestigious Harvard Business School as a Baker Scholar, help pave the way for the US Department of Justice to undertake a full-blown investigation leading to charges linking Gautam Adani to a $250 million bribery scheme?A key question that sticks out of the 52-page indictment order against eight individuals including the Adanis, is who are the two unnamed “co-conspirators”, whose role is vividly described in the document. Their identities as per a footnote in the court papers, are known only to the Grand Jury, and have never once been disclosed in the 5-count indictment. These two individuals, according to those familiar with the conventions of US law, likely, cooperated with US prosecutors. They are also among those named as responsible for supressing documents, deleting electronic evidences, concealing or withholding information as well as providing false ones to the US government officials and to their own board of directors. But subsequently may have provided the authorities granular details of how the “bribery scheme,” was conceived, thought through and executed in 2022.Also Read: How Indian billionaire Gautam Adani's alleged bribery scheme took off and unraveledThe order describes the ‘Co-Conspirator No. 1’ as a citizen of the United Kingdom who resided in Hong Kong. More importantly, he was also the non-executive chairman of the “US Issuer and the US Issuers subsidiary’s board of directors from approximately October 2021 through October 2023.”This description matches Alan Rosling, who was the non-executive chair of Azure Power Global between those two years. He was appointed a month before, in end September, as a nominee Director of Azure by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), replacing Barney Rush, a director for 6 years. Rosling had also assumed the role of Chairman of the Board of Azure Power India Private Limited, a subsidiary of Azure Power Global Limited.Also Read: Adani Group stocks extend losses, drop up to 11% after Kenya cancels deals following US charges Rosling served as an executive director of Tata Sons between 2004 and 2009 and played an important role in its global expansion strategy which also led to several marque acquisitions by the salt-to-software group, especially in the UK. In 2014, the soft-spoken Rosling was also awarded Commander of the British Empire (CBE).Co-conspirator 2, an Indian citizen also residing in the country, is only described as a “high ranking executive” in the same US company between July 2019 through April 2022. Subsequently, it is mentioned this individual was asked to “resign” on April 25th 2022 from his position along with one of the defendant, Ranjit Gupta, “from their positions which they did.” The next day an official announcement was also made by the company.Records show, the news of the departure of Ranjit Gupta, the then Chief executive officer and Murali Subramanian, the then Chief Operating Officer of Azure was made public on April 26th 2022 following a 3 year stint. Rosling, already the chairman of the Board of Azure, was tasked to oversee the company till a new CEO was found. This points towards Subramanian as Co-conspirator 2 since his colleague Gupta has been named in the court papers. The court papers also detail out the code names these two co-conspirators along with some of the other defendants had given to the Adani Group chairman and the CEO of Adani Green Energy Vneet Jain. Gautam S Adani was referred to with monikers like SAG, Mr (.) A, Numero uno and the big man while his CEO Jain was the snake, Numero Uno minus one or simply V. Rosling himself left Azure in October 2023. His stint in the company coincided with a controversial period when two whistleblowers red flagged financial impropriety in the company. Then listed in NYSE, Azure in its 2022-23 annual report had disclosed its audit committee had received two whistleblower complaints—in May 2022 and September 2022— that had detailing improper payments to Indian government officials. These two complaints triggered the multi-agency probe in the US into the Adani group.Azure Power, founded in 2008, by Inderpreet Wadhwa, an Indian-American renewable energy entrepreneur in 2008, got delisted from the US exchange last November.Subramanian declined to comment. Messages to Alan Rosling on his Hong Kong number remained unanswered till press time. The name of the US Issuer of its subsidiaries is also nowhere mentioned in the latest court papers, but on November 20, the US Securities and Exchange Commission specified the names of Azure Power Global as well as Adani Green, in their case filed against, Cyril Cabanes, former chief executive of the company.“Both Azure and Adani Green were projected to earn billions in revenue from the projects,” the regulator had said.HIGH PROFILE MENRosling’s pivot to green energy started with Kiran Energy in 2010, a year after he left Tatas, when he co-founded the company with former KPMG executive Ardeshir Contractor and went on to raise funds from PE investors including Rajat Gupta’s New Silk Route only to sell out 8 years later to Hinduja Power.Apart from a being a key member of John Major’s inner circle as a member of The Policy Unit at No 10 Downing Street, Rosling, a self-professed fan of Ratan Tata had picked up diverse corporate experiences working across sectors like alcoholic beverages to textiles to auto and auto components. His professional journey though started as an investment banker with SG Warburg & Co. Post banking, he joined the textile industry and became CEO of Piersons, a division of Courtaulds Textiles plc. Subsequently, Rosling joined the Jardine Matheson Group -- a Bermuda domiciled, retail-to-real estate, diversified British conglomerate, also the parent of the Mandarin Oriental chain of hotels -- in Hong Kong. Between 1998 to 2003, he became chairman of their Indian operations, and also the managing director of Concorde Motors, a joint venture between Jardine Motors and the Tata group. Tatas bought out the Jardines’ stake from the alliance out in 2002.Both Gupta and Subramanian began their careers in Schlumberger, in various field and management positions before stints in leading executives at other power companies, including Orange Renewables and IndiaBulls Power. They co-founded Ostro Energy, a greenfield independent power producer and became their CEO and chief operating officers. Their company along with its 1.1 GW portfolio of solar and wind parks was bought over by Renew in 2018 for $1.6 billion – the largest M&A in the space at that time.