New Delhi: In the wake of the Hindenburg Research’s allegations against SEBI chairperson Madhabi Buch, the Congress Sunday said the government must act immediately to eliminate conflicts of interest in the regulator’s investigation of the Adani Group and reiterated the demand for a JPC probe into the entire matter.
The opposition party also said the Supreme Court should take suo motu cognisance of the “entire scam” and investigate it under its aegis because here the investigating agency SEBI itself is accused of being involved in it.
It also asserted that in the wake of such “serious allegations”, Buch cannot remain in her position at all.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) previously cleared Adani before the Supreme Court following the January 2023 Hindenburg Report revelations.
However, new allegations have surfaced regarding a “quid-pro-quo” involving the SEBI chief, he said.
“The small & medium investors belonging to the Middle Class who invest their hard-earned money in the stock market need to be protected, as they believe in the SEBI. A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) inquiry is imperative to investigate this massive scandal,” he said.
“Until then, concerns persist that PM Modi will continue to shield his ally, compromising India’s Constitutional institutions, painstakingly built over seven decades,” Kharge said in a post on X.
US short-seller Hindenburg Research Saturday launched a broadside against market regulator SEBI chairperson Madhabi Buch, alleging she and her husband had stakes in obscure offshore funds used in the alleged Adani money siphoning scandal.
SEBI Chairman Buch and her husband have denied the allegations as baseless and asserted their finances are an open book.
The Adani Group termed the latest allegations malicious and based on manipulation of select public information. The company said it has no commercial relationship with SEBI chairperson or her husband.
In a statement issued late Saturday night and reposted on X on Sunday, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the SEBI’s “strange reluctance to investigate the Adani mega scam” has been long noted, not least by the SC’s Expert Committee.
The Committee, he said, had noted that SEBI in 2018 diluted and in 2019, entirely deleted the reporting requirements relating to the ultimate beneficial (i.e. actual) ownership of foreign funds.
“This had tied its hands to the extent that ‘the securities market regulator suspects wrongdoing, but also finds compliance with various stipulations in attendant regulations… It is this dichotomy that has led to SEBI drawing a blank worldwide’,” Ramesh said quoting the Expert Committee.
He said the Hindenburg Research’s Saturday revelations show that Buch and her husband invested in the same Bermuda and Mauritius-based offshore funds in which “Vinod Adani and his close associates Chang Chung-Ling and Nasser Ali Shahban Ahli invested funds earned from the over-invoicing of power equipment”.
“These funds are believed also to have been used to amass large stakes in Adani Group companies in violation of SEBI regulations. It is shocking that Buch would have a financial stake in these same funds,” Ramesh said.
The Congress leader said the revelation raise fresh questions about Gautam Adani’s two 2022 meetings in quick succession with Buch, shortly after she became the stock market regulator’s chairperson.
“The government must act immediately to eliminate all conflicts of interest in the SEBI investigation of Adani. The fact is that the seeming complicity of the highest officials of the land can only be resolved by setting up a JPC to investigate the full scope of the Adani mega scam,” the former Union minister said in his statement.
He said the SEBI account on Twitter is “locked” at a time when “evidence of conflict of interest by its top leadership” has come out. “This opacity leads to questions about whether the platform has been quietly deleting past advisories/press releases which may be incriminating the organisation/its leadership on the Modani scam,” Ramesh said.
Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate posed questions to Buch, asking that when she was a whole-time director of SEBI, did she ever hold shares/stakes in Agora Partners in Singapore or Agora Partners in India.
Did she disclose this shareholding and the income and revenue received, Shrinate asked.
“Which entities gave business to Agora? Did you transfer your stake in Agora to your husband in 2022? Which entities continue to give business to Agora Singapore or Agora India? Did you inform SEBI that your husband has joined Blackstone, the biggest player in REIT investment?” Shrinate said.
“Before telling the Supreme Court that SEBI did not find anything, did you inform the court-appointed committee or the Supreme Court that you or your husband had been investors in some of the funds you were tasked to investigate?” Shrinate said.
“Did you recuse yourself from the investigation, and if you didn’t, why didn’t you do so?” she said.
Shrinate asked whether in the wake of the allegations against her, SEBI chief Buch can continue in her position or should she be removed with immediate effect.
Posing questions to the government, Shrinate asked whether this alleged collusion between Adani and SEBI chief was possible without the protection of PM Modi.
What do PM Modi and the government have to say about their “own market regulator” being surrounded by such allegations, she asked.
Follow on Twitter | Posted by Marziya Sharif | 
