SEBI Chair Madhabi Puri Buch Visits Delhi Amid Hindenburg Allegations - Reports

Hindenberg Allegations: SEBI Chief Madhabi Puri Buch arrived in Delhi and was expected to meet with top government officials, according to reports. However, she did not have a meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, reportedly.  

Hindenburg's Report alleged that whistleblower documents have revealed that Buch used her personal email to conduct business under her husband's name while serving as a whole-time member of SEBI. In 2017, just weeks before her appointment, she ensured that accounts with ties to Adani were registered solely in the name of her husband, Dhaval Buch.

Earlier, the SEBI Chairperson and her husband had said that the investment in the fund referred to in the Hindenurg report was made before she had taken up the job. The statement said, "The investment in the fund referred to in the Hindenburg report was made in 2015 when they were both private citizens living in Singapore and almost 2 years before Madhabi joined SEBI, even as a Whole Time Member. "

"The decision to invest in this fund was because the Chief Investment Officer, Anil Ahuja, is Dhaval's childhood friend from school and IIT Delhi and, being an ex-employee of Citibank, J.P. Morgan and 3i Group plc, had many decades of a strong investing career. The fact that these were the drivers of the investment decision is borne out by the fact that when, in 2018, Ahuja, left his position as CIO of the fund, we redeemed the investment in that fund," the statement further reads."As confirmed by Anil Ahuja, at no point in time did the fund invest in any bond, equity, or derivative of any Adani group company," the statement had added.

On Saturday, the US-based firm alleged that SEBI's Chairperson Madhabi Buch and her husband had a stake in "both the obscure offshore entities used in the Adani money siphoning scandal" In January 2023, Hindenburg published a report accusing the Adani Group of financial irregularities, leading to a significant drop in the company's stock price. The group at the time had rubbished these claims.

In January 2024, the Supreme Court refused to transfer the probe into the allegations of stock price manipulation by the Adani group to an SIT and directed market regulator SEBI to complete its probe into two pending cases within three months. Earlier this year the SC also dismissed a plea seeking to review the verdict that had sought investigation by the market watchdog SEBI in the Adani-Hindenburg case.