Seven days have passed since the Securities and Exchange Commission filed its proposed final judgments against Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani — $6 million for the elder, $12 million for the nephew, $18 million total, no admission of guilt — in the Eastern District of New York on May 15. [1] As of Friday's close, the assigned federal judge has not signed. The docket carries the filing; it does not yet carry the order.

The paper's Thursday standard on the Adani arc put the position plainly: three filings, three working days, one arc — the Treasury OFAC $275 million civil settlement, the DOJ criminal dismissal, the SEC civil judgment. The first two are closed. The third is contingent. MLex's reporting on the same day named the contingency explicitly: the SEC settlement is "subject to court approval." [2] Sharecast confirmed the consent terms — both men "consented to entry of the final judgment without admitting or denying the allegations." [3]

The non-discharge clause in the consent papers is the discipline the bench could now read with the eye of a separate American precedent. Federal judges have lately questioned regulator-corporate settlements; a "no rubber stamp" line from the SEC-Musk docket has circulated. The Eastern District judge could approve, reject, or condition the Adani deal at the next docket entry. None of those outcomes is yet on the file.

The Mumbai bourse priced the resolution as closed. The federal judge has not. Day seven is the gap.

-- PRIYA SHARMA, Delhi