"Government Must Act To Eliminate All Conflicts Of Interest": Congress On Hindenburg Report

The Congress has urged the government to eliminate conflicts of interest following Hindenburg Research‘s latest allegations targeting the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and its Chairperson, Madhabi Puri Buch. Hindenburg, which previously accused the Adani Group of being involved in “the largest con in corporate history,” now claims that Buch and her husband, Dhaval Buch, hold stakes in offshore funds allegedly linked to the Adani money-laundering scandal.

According to Hindenburg’s report, whistleblower documents reveal that the Buchs invested in the IPE Plus Fund 1, a Mauritius-registered offshore fund allegedly tied to entities controlled by Vinod Adani, the brother of Adani Group founder Gautam Adani. The fund is reportedly part of a complex structure used to channel money through offshore accounts by over-invoicing power equipment.

The Congress reacted strongly, highlighting SEBI’s previous reluctance to investigate the Adani scandal, as noted by the Supreme Court’s Expert Committee. The party criticized SEBI’s decision in 2019 to delete reporting requirements for the actual ownership of foreign funds, which hindered the regulator’s ability to probe the issue effectively. Although SEBI reintroduced stricter reporting rules in June 2023 and claimed to investigate 13 suspicious transactions, the investigations have yet to yield results.

Congress expressed shock at the alleged financial ties between the SEBI Chairperson and the Adani-linked offshore funds. The party also questioned two meetings between Gautam Adani and Ms. Buch in 2022, shortly after she assumed her role as SEBI Chairperson, at a time when SEBI was supposedly investigating Adani’s transactions.

Congress demanded immediate government action to resolve these conflicts of interest and called for the establishment of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to thoroughly investigate the Adani MegaScam.