Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) chief Madhavi Puri Buch was ready to come to the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament or at least she had shown that she wanted to come. Then, in response to the letter sent by PAC Chairman KC Venugopal, SEBI had said that four SEBI officials including SEBI chief Madhavi Puri Buch would participate in the PAC meeting. The date of October 24 was fixed for the meeting. All the members were informed about this. The meeting was scheduled to start at around 11 in the morning. But two hours before that, the SEBI chief had informed the PAC that due to ‘personal emergency’ she would not be able to attend the PAC meeting. After this the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee was postponed.
According to law, this is a case of contempt of Parliament and the committee, but on behalf of KC Venugopal it was said that Madhavi Puri is a butch woman and if she has talked about ‘personal emergency’ then she will be given a chance. It is noteworthy that when Venugopal had sent a letter to the SEBI chief on October 4, the BJP MPs included in the PAC had opposed it. BJP MP Nishikant Dubey had written a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker regarding this. He had called it a violation of PAC rules and said that the PAC Chairman was misusing his position. Not only this, he had called the PAC Chairman a part of the toolkit that is harming the economy. Think, how serious an allegation this was against the organization general secretary of the main opposition party, the Lok Sabha member and the chairman of the PAC.
Despite this the Speaker did not take any action on this. No action was taken by the Speaker till October 24 on the complaint written in the letter dated October 4. Then SEBI chief was also ready to come to the PAC meeting. But what happened suddenly that Madhavi Puri refused to participate in the meeting on the morning of 24 October? Not only this, after this the entire Bharatiya Janata Party came out in his support. Former Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad targeted KC Venugopal in a press conference.
It is noteworthy that the SEBI chief has been accused of conflict of interest and financial misconduct. The allegations are that SEBI was investigating the allegations made by Hindenburg Research against the Adani Group and the SEBI chief had invested in the company, which also has investments in the Adani Group. Similarly, she has also been accused of taking money from ICICI Bank and some other places while holding the post of SEBI chief. However, PAC did not call for investigation into his allegations. He was called to review the functioning of SEBI. BJP MPs are opposing his calling on the technical ground that the PAC should look into only those cases which have been referred by the CAG. That is to say, if the CAG has not raised any questions on the functioning of SEBI or has no report, then the PAC should not call anyone on its own initiative.