SEBI Chairman Madhabi Puri Buch did not appear before the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday. He referred the “urgent work” to committee chairman KC Venugopal and sought exemption from appearing in court today. The committee summoned Butch to appear in court a second time.
Meanwhile, the BJP accused committee chairman KC Venugopal of taking unilateral decisions and raising baseless questions to defame the government.
In fact, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), headed by senior Congress leader KC Venugopal, held a meeting on Thursday morning to review the functioning and functioning of regulator SEBI and summoned Madhabi Puri Buch. However, Butch did not attend the meeting, citing “urgent reasons.”
Congress accused Butch of holding a lucrative position in ICICI Bank. However, the bank denied the accusation.
“In the first meeting of the committee, we decided to review the regulator,” KC Venugopal told reporters on Thursday morning. We have a meeting today to review SEBI. We sent notifications to relevant personnel. He asked for exemption from attending this meeting and we declined. She then confirmed that she and her team would attend the committee meeting. But at 9:30 am today, we received information from the SEBI chief and other members that he could not travel to Delhi due to some urgent reasons. Therefore, taking into account his request, we have decided to postpone today’s meeting to another date.
Parliamentary political action committees keep a close eye on government accounts and the operations of public utilities. SEBI is the statutory body responsible for the regulation of capital markets in India.
Why is the opposition attacking SEBI?
US short-selling firm Hindenburg accused Adani Group of “stock price manipulation” in its research report. Since then, SEBI and Madhabi Puri Buch have been under constant attack from the Congress party and the opposition.
Last month, Hindenburg claimed that SEBI’s reluctance to take action against the Adani Group could be due to Bucher’s stake in offshore funds linked to the group. Butch, however, called the accusations baseless.
Last month, Congress accused Buch of earning Rs 1,680 crore from ICICI Bank between 2017 and 2024 after he became a full-time member of the markets regulator in 2017. While Buch is yet to respond to the allegations, ICICI Bank has denied providing any salary or any ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) to the SEBI CEO in addition to retirement benefits after his retirement from the bank.
