New Delhi: Amid a new Hindenburg report alleging Security and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) chief Madhabi Puri Buch held stake in obscure offshore entities used in alleged Adani money laundering case, the billionaire Gautam Adani-led conglomerate on Sunday rubbished the accusations made against it while calling them “malicious” and “mischievous”.
“The latest allegations by Hindenburg are malicious, mischievous and manipulative selections of publicly available information to arrive at pre-determined conclusions for personal profiteering with wanton disregard for facts and the law. We completely reject these allegations against the Adani Group which are a recycling of discredited claims that have been thoroughly investigated, proven to be baseless and already dismissed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in March 2023,”Adani Group said in a stock exchange filing.
Adani group spokesperson in the stock exchange filing said the company’s overseas holding structure is fully transparent, with all relevant details disclosed regularly in numerous public documents.
“The Adani Group has absolutely no commercial relationship with the individuals or matters mentioned in this calculated deliberate effort to malign our standing. We remain steadfastly committed to transparency and compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements,” Adani group said.
It further added, “For a discredited short-seller under the scanner for several violations of Indian securities laws, Hindenburg’s allegations are no more than red herrings thrown by a desperate entity with total contempt for Indian laws.
Citing whistle blower documents, the American short-seller Hindenburg in its report released on August 10 claimed that SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch had stake in obscure offshore entities used in alleged Adani money laundering case.
“…despite the existence of thousands of mainstream, reputable onshore Indian mutual fund products, an industry she now is responsible for regulating, documents show SEBI chairperson Madhabi Buch and her husband had stakes in a multi-layered offshore fund structure with miniscule assets, traversing known high-risk jurisdictions, overseen by a company with reported ties to the Wirecard scandal, in the same entity run by an Adani director and significantly used by Vinod Adani in the alleged Adani cash siphoning scandal,” Hindenbug report released on August 10 claimed.
The Sebi chief had earlier vehemently denied allegations made by Hindenburg Research terming it as ‘character assassination’ bid.
“Our life and finances are an open book. All disclosures as required have already been furnished to SEBI over the years. We have no hesitation in disclosing any and all financial documents, including those that relate to the period when we were strictly private citizens, to any and every authority that may seek them. Further, in the interest of complete transparency, we would be issuing a detailed statement in due course,” said the statement issued by Sebi chief and her husband Dhaval Buch.
The statement further added, “It is unfortunate that Hindenburg Research against whom SEBI has taken an Enforcement action and issued a show cause notice has chosen to attempt character assassination in response to the same.”
Meanwhile, the main opposition Congress has demanded immediate action by the government to eliminate all conflicts of interest in the Sebi investigation of Adani group.
“The government must act immediately to eliminate all conflicts of interest in the SEBI investigation of Adani. The fact is that the seeming complicity of the highest officials of the land can only be resolved by setting up a JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee) to investigate the full scope of the Adani MegaScam,” Congress General Secretary in-charge Communications Jairam Ramesh said. UNI
