The Congress has launched a fresh broadside against Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri-Buch and whole-time member Ananth Narayan Gopalakrishnan because of conflicts of interest arising from their dealings with people linked to companies that were being investigated by the market regulator for violating rules.

Congress spokesman Pawan Khera, party president Mallikarjun Kharge and leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi drummed up a chorus of accusations against the “syndicate” being run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Congress alleged that Modi was protecting Puri-Buch to avoid any political backlash resulting from any embarrassing disclosures that she might make that could take him down with her.

Earlier this month, the Sebi chief skipped a meeting with the Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) where many felt she could be grilled on her various conflicts of interest.

“During the UPA regime, if an allegation was made against someone, the person would be removed in the interest of accountability… as it should be in a democracy. Now, the Prime Minister is so scared that he does not have the courage to remove tainted persons around him. We had no such fear while seeking resignations from people who were later proven to be innocent,” Khera asserted at a media conference where he made the latest disclosures.

“What are the compulsions that have forced the Modi government to appoint Puri-Buch as the Sebi chief and why is the government protecting her despite all the evidence against her? Is she blackmailing the government and saying that I won’t go down alone? Because it is not possible for any democratically elected government to continue protecting a tainted individual, especially when there is a smoking gun and there is evidence out there in the public domain,” Khera added.

Fresh charges

The latest charges add to the stack of complaints levelled last month against Puri-Buch for failing to disclose her relationships, monetary gains and investments linked to sullied individuals and their companies.

In the latest revelations, the Congress said Puri-Buch had rented out a flat sometime in 2021 to a firm called Green World & Infra Pvt Ltd. The firm is owned by Mukul and Vipul Bansal, top executives of Indiabulls Housing that was investigated by Sebi.

Puri-Buch had also failed to disclose her links to a company called Predible Health, which was incorporated on May 2, 2016. She continued to hold shares in the company after she joined Sebi as a whole-time member in 2017. She sold the stake five years later to an American company, Nference Inc, at a price that gave her a return of more than 226 times, Khera claimed.

Predible had also received funds from the government of India’s special funds for start-ups.

Khera said one of the investors in Predible wasJacesa Investments Ltd (based in St Vincent and the Grenadines) which has been named in the Paradise Papers. St Vincent is a tax haven in the Caribbean.

The Paradise Papers is a data stack of 13.4 million documents that were revealed in November 2017, blowing the lid on tax evasion by global politicians, industrialists and corporations using offshore companies established in several tax havens.

Mukul Bansal is part of the senior management in the Indiabulls group whose interests span from financial services to construction equipment rentals. The group was formed by a trio of IIT Delhi graduates in 2000. Mukul’s LinkedIn profile says he has been the managing director and CEO of Green World Buildcon & Infra since 2011. He was the director of Indiabulls Real Estate from 1999-2011.

In July, Indiabulls Real Estate was renamed Equinox India Developments Ltd. Another group firm, Indiabulls Housing Finance, changed its name to Sammaan Capital Ltd. The rebranding occurred after it was transformed into a board-run, professionally managed company.

Ananth Narayan Gopalakrishnan, who joined Sebi two years ago as a whole-time member, has also been sucked into the raging controversy over undisclosed conflicts of interest. The charge against him is that he received ₹64.8 lakh for a flat he rented out to a stock brokerage called IMC Indian Securities.

Gopalakrishnan has also been charged with holding 1 lakh shares in Proud Securities and Credits Pvt Ltd (now named Incred). Incred’s current valuation is ₹8,800 crore, which means the Sebi whole-time member’s holding is now worth ₹70 crore.

Deep rot

Kharge posted on X: “You cannot shield the rot created in Sebi under the chairperson appointed by you. The continuing barrage of exposés makes her position untenable. You have destroyed the sanctity of Sebi — India’s market regulator, painstakingly created over the years, thereby jeopardising the hard-earned savings of crores of small & medium investors! It also unmasks how you engineered a monopoly for your dear friend Adani! A thorough JPC is required to probe every aspect of this syndicate!”

Back in August, US-based short seller Hindenburg Research had alleged that Puri-Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch had investments in obscure offshore entities in Bermuda and Mauritius that were also used by Vinod Adani, elder brother of Gautam Adani, to invest in Indian markets and ratchet up stock prices of group firms.

Rahul has been training his guns on Gautam Adani, the tycoon who has been battling a raft of allegations by Hindenburg Research and media publications like the Financial Times for financial and accounting shenanigans. These charges are being investigated by Sebi which has yet to come out with its final report.

In his latest salvo, Rahul has accused the Modi government of running a “Monopoly Bachao Syndicate” that has helped the Adani group to dominate sectors such as airports, ports, and power and venture into areas like cement and defence production.

“Whichever sector Adani wants, the syndicate gets down to creating a monopoly for him in it,” he said in a video relating to Adani Defence and Aerospace.

The Congress does not appear to have gained much electorally from its relentless campaign against Modi because of his proximity to the Adani group. But that has not deterred Rahul, who is likely to step up his attack ahead of the Maharashtra elections.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray has also slammed the Eknath Shinde government in the state, accusing it of handing over land free of cost in Mumbai to the Adani group for a redevelopment project.

Additional reporting by our business bureau in Mumbai