New Delhi: While the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had stated last month that chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch had recused herself from matters of potential conflict of interest, it has now said in response to a Right to Information (RTI) application that the matters in which she had recused herself are “not readily available and collating the same will lead to disproportionately diverting the resources of the public authority”.
On August 10, Hindenburg Research – whose report on the Adani group last year alleged price rigging of company shares – accused Buch and her husband Dhawal Buch of having held “stakes in both the obscure offshore funds used in the Adani money siphoning scandal,” citing “whistleblower documents”.
An application filed under RTI by transparency activist Commodore Lokesh Batra sought to know declarations of complete details of ‘Financial Assets and Equities’ held by Buch and her family members to the SEBI Board and Government of India, and details of all the matters where the chairperson had recused herself involving potential conflict of interest.
Batra’s RTI application cited SEBI’s August 11 unsigned note that said that “relevant disclosures required in terms of holdings of securities and their transfers have been made by the chairperson [Buch] from time to time” and that she “has also recused herself in matters involving potential conflicts of interest”.
‘No such information is readily available’
However, in response to his RTI application, SEBI has said that no such information on the matters in which she recused herself is “readily available” and the information on her assets disclosed to the SEBI and union government amounts to “personal information.”
“Since the information sought do not pertain to you and the same relates to personal information, the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest and may cause unwarranted invasion into the privacy of the individual and may also endanger the life or physical safety of the person(s). The same is, therefore exempt in terms of Section 8(1)(g) and 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005,” it said.
Section 8(1)(e) of the RTI Act exempts information “available to a person in his fiduciary relationship” unless a competent authority decides its disclosure is in the larger public interest.
“Further the information on cases where Madhabi Puri Buch recused herself due to potential conflicts of interest during her tenure is not readily available and collating the same will lead to disproportionately diverting the resources of the public authority in terms of Section 7(9) of the RTI Act,” SEBI said in its RTI response to Batra.
Subsection (1)(j) exempts “personal information” whose disclosure is unrelated to the public interest or whose disclosure “would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual”, unless designated officials decide otherwise.
In its August 10 report, Hindenburg also said Buch was a 100% shareholder in a Singapore-based consultancy company called Agora Partners until as recently as March 16, 2022 – two weeks after she became SEBI chair – when she transferred her stake to her husband. Buch set up both Agora Advisory and Agora Partners before she joined SEBI as a whole-time member in 2017.
