“Credibility of SEBI totally eradicated…” KC Venugopal on Hindenburg report

New Delhi [India], August 12 (ANI): Following the US-based short seller Hindenburg report and its allegations on market regulator SEBI chairperson Madhabi Buch, AICC General Secretary and MP, KC Venugopal on Monday said that the credibility of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is eradicated, demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the matter.

“It was a really shocking situation if the SEBI chairperson itself is involved in this entire episode. We are demanding a JPC inquiry on it. Earlier also, we demanded a JPC inquiry. I think they had given a misreading report to the Supreme Court earlier…I think SC will also take a suo moto case against this…The country is expecting that without any delay the SEBI chairperson should resign from the post…Now the credibility of SEBI is totally eradicated, how can she continue as a chairperson,” the Congress leader said.

NCP-SCP leader Rohit Pawar said that the government should intervene and conduct an inquiry.

“The government should look into it and conduct an inquiry. If the government wants it can set up a JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee) also. If Hindenburg is targeting only Indian companies…Today, the way the BJP govt is working it is not able to give jobs to the youth. On one side there are no new companies coming in and on the other side, Hindenburg is betting on a few companies to bring down stocks of those companies,” Pawar said.

“We should look at Hindenburg and the company which it claims has done wrong …SEBI should also be looked into,” he added.

Earlier, Hindenburg alleged that market regulator SEBI chairperson Madhabi Buch and her husband had stakes in obscure offshore funds used in the alleged Adani money siphoning scandal.

Meanwhile, SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Buch and her husbands through a press release rejected the allegations of Hindenburg as baseless and malicious and said this was done for their “character assassination.”

On August 10, Hindenburg published a report alleging, “We had previously noted Adani’s total confidence in continuing to operate without the risk of serious regulatory intervention, suggesting that this may be explained through Adani’s relationship with SEBI Chairperson, Madhabi Buch.”

“What we hadn’t realized: the current SEBI Chairperson and her husband, Dhaval Buch, had hidden stakes in the exact same obscure offshore Bermuda and Mauritius funds, found in the same complex nested structure, used by Vinod Adani,” the report by the US hedge firm alleged.

Earlier in January 2023, Hindenburg published a report accusing the Adani Group of financial irregularities, leading to a significant drop in the group’s stock prices.

Adani had rubbished these claims as baseless.

The Supreme Court has given a clean chit to the Adani group. In January 2024, the apex court refused to transfer the probe into the allegations made by Hindenburg 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.

In June this year, the Supreme Court also dismissed a plea seeking to review its earlier verdict in the Adani-Hindenburg case.