Hindenburg 2: End SEBI's Conflict of Interest in Probing Adani Says Congress, Need JPC on 'MegaScam'

New Delhi: The opposition Congress party was quick off the bat today following Hindenburg's new disclosures that SEBI chair Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband had allegedly invested in offshore funds linked to the Adani group, saying it was "shocking" that the person running the country's securities market watchdog "would have a financial stake" in funds "believed... to have been used to amass large stakes in Adani Group companies in violation of SEBI regulations."

In a statement, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh linked the latest revelations to what he said was "SEBI's strange reluctance to investigate the Adani MegaScam".

This reluctance, he said, was noted by the expert committee appointed by the Supreme Court last year, which "had pointed out in its report that SEBI had in 2018 diluted and in 2019, entirely deleted the reporting requirements relating to the ultimate beneficial (i.e. actual) ownership of foreign funds. "

This dilution of reporting requirements had tied SEBI's hands so that even in cases where "the securities market regulator suspects wrongdoing...  this ... that has led to SEBI drawing a blank worldwide," he quoted the expert committee as observing.

Ramesh said that that the latest Hindenburg Research revelations "show that SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri 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."

Hindenburg's new report – based on documents provided to it by an unidentified whistleblower – also "raises fresh questions about Gautam Adani's two 2022 meetings in quick succession with [Madhabi] Buch shortly after she became SEBI chairperson," said Ramesh, adding that these meetings occurred at a time when "SEBI was supposedly investigating Adani transactions at the time."

Calling for the Modi-led NDA government t0 immediately "eliminate all conflicts of interest in the SEBI investigation of Adani", the Congress party said that "the seeming complicity of the highest officials of the land" in the 'Adani MegaScam' can "only be resolved by setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate the full scope" of the allegations.

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