Fin panel to soon call Sebi chief, says official
The finance committee will call SEBI chief Madhabi Puri Buch to discuss her role amid allegations from Hindenburg Research, but corruption inquiries are unlikely.
After the public accounts committee (PAC), the parliamentary standing committee on finance has also decided to call Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch to discuss the functioning of the top capital markets regulator. A senior finance panel functionary, however, said it is unlikely to dig into corruption allegations against the SEBI chief.
The SEBI chief is under fire over US short-seller Hindenburg Research’s report that alleged that Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch owned stakes in offshore entities linked to Vinod Adani. The couple has dismissed the allegations as baseless, asserting their finances are transparent.
The Opposition Congress has demanded an investigation by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) into the allegations against the SEBI chief.
The senior finance panel functionary told HT that if there are allegations of corruption, then it is the job of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) or Mumbai Police to start a probe against her, adding: “The standing committees are not the right place to probe such issues.”
The functionary also pointed out that standing panels have a tradition of not getting into personal issues with deponents. “When we probed the 2G scam, a top-ranking industrialist had come to depose and the chairman only showed the former the letter he had written to a political leader suggesting possible names as telecom minister. But the industrialist was not grilled on the issue,” the functionary added.
This distinction has been made as the PAC is geared up to question Buch on the performance audit of SEBI on October 24. In the PAC led by Congress lawmaker KC Venugopal, some MPs have already raised stiff objections to the plan and cited rules to prevent Buch’s deposition.
{{/usCountry}}This distinction has been made as the PAC is geared up to question Buch on the performance audit of SEBI on October 24. In the PAC led by Congress lawmaker KC Venugopal, some MPs have already raised stiff objections to the plan and cited rules to prevent Buch’s deposition.
{{/usCountry}}Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to “restrain” PAC chief Venugopal and expressed concern over the panel becoming a “surreptitious tool kit of some countries, inimical to the galloping strides which our country”, triggering a potential conflict before the Parliament’s audit watchdog reviews the performance of SEBI on October 24.
Dubey has argued that neither the Comptroller & Auditor General of India has published any report on the conduct of SEBI chief nor this aspect has any linkage to the appropriation accounts of the Government of India. He also claimed it would be “unconstitutional and illegal” to investigate the allegation of conflict of interest of SEBI chief—issues that are “non-existent”.
