Hindenburg charge: Cong says JPC must, urges SC to take cognisance

New Delhi, NT Bureau: 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.

Concerns persist that PM Modi will continue to shield his ally, compromising India's Constitutional institutions, painstakingly built over seven decades —Congress president Kharge

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.

Allegations against Adani probed: SEBI

In its first comments, capital markets regulator Sebi said it has investigated all the allegations against the Adani group. Chairperson Madhabi Buch made relevant disclosures from time to time and recused herself in matters involving potential conflicts of interest, the regulator said in a statement.

The regulator also said that it has duly investigated the allegations made by Hindenburg against Adani, and said that last of its 26 investigations is nearing completion now.

Earlier, Buch and her husband Dhaval had termed the allegations baseless, and also said that the short seller is attacking the credibility of the capital markets regulator.