SEBI chief skips parliamentary panel meeting citing ‘personal exigencies’
BJP MPs accused Public Accounts Committee Chairperson KC Venugopal of political bias in setting the meeting’s agenda.
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Securities and Exchange Board of India chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch on Thursday skipped a meeting of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee due to “personal exigencies”, The Wire reported. The meeting was postponed.
Buch was to be questioned about the conflict of interest allegations levelled against her in August, in connection with alleged financial misconduct by the Adani Group.
“The first meeting of the committee, we decided to have a suo moto review of regulatory bodies,” Congress leader KC Venugopal, the chairperson of the panel, told reporters. “That is why this morning we had called the regulatory bodies of SEBI, for review of SEBI.”
In August, American investment firm Hindenburg Research alleged that the SEBI chief and her husband Dhaval Buch had “hidden stakes” in offshore entities tied to stock price manipulation and money laundering by the Adani Group.
Madhabi and Dhaval Buch denied the allegations.
This came 18 months after Hindenburg Research accused the Adani Group of engaging in accounting fraud and money laundering using offshore tax havens. The market regulator, led by Madhabi Buch, had “drawn a blank” in its investigation of these allegations last year and told a Supreme Court-appointed panel that further enquiry could be a “journey without a destination”.
Venugopal said that notices had been sent to certain individuals. “They [the SEBI chairperson] sought an exemption...
