Sebi chief was drawing salary from ICICI: Congress

On Monday, the Congress made a serious allegation against Sebi Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch. The party accused her of a conflict of interest, alleging that she was drawing regular income from a private bank while being a full-time member of the markets regulatory body. The opposition party also asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come clean on her appointment.

At a press conference in Delhi, the Congress alleged that since the current Sebi chairperson took office in 2017, she has not only been drawing a salary from Sebi but has also been holding an office of profit at the ICICI Bank, continuing to receive income from them to this very day.

"When you work at one company, you only get a salary from there. However, when the Sebi Chairperson was a full-time member of Sebi, she was receiving regular income from ICICI Bank, prudential, and ESOP from 2017-2024. Someone sitting in such a higher position in a regulatory body was receiving a payment from somewhere else. This is completely a violation of Section 54 of Sebi," said Congress leader Pawan Khera during the press conference.

In its press release, the Congress alleged that the total amount received by Buch from ICICI from her time of joining Sebi in 2017 up until today totals to Rs 16.8 crore, which is "shockingly 5.09 times the income she received from Sebi during the same period which amounts to Rs 3.3 crore".

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said serious questions have been raised over the conflict of interest of the Sebi chairperson in the regulatory body's Supreme Court-mandated investigations into violations of securities laws by the Adani Group.

"These questions seem to have been simply brushed aside by the Government of India. Now comes this fresh revelation of shocking illegality," Ramesh said in a post on X.

Buch was a full-time member of Sebi from April 5, 2017 to October 4, 2021 before she assumed the role of Sebi Chairperson from March 2022.

The Congress's allegations come days after US-based short-seller firm Hindenburg Research claimed that Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch had a stake in some obscure offshore entities used in the alleged Adani money siphoning scandal.

The Buchs denied the allegations, saying that their investment in the fund, which Hindenburg claimed is linked to the alleged Adani stock manipulation, was made two years before Madhabi joined Sebi.