Adani-Hindenburg: SEBI’s inability to reach final conclusion ‘deeply worrying’, says Congress

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Saturday said the stock market regulator SEBI’s inability to reach a conclusive finding on the allegations of round-tripping and money laundering by the Adani Group was “deeply worrying”.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has admitted this in its status report to the Supreme Court and added only a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) can examine how the government flouted norms and procedures to help Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “favourite business group”.

“The inability of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to reach a conclusive finding on allegations of round-tripping and money laundering by the Adani Group, as it has admitted in its August 25, 2023 status report to the Supreme Court, is deeply troubling,” Ramesh said in a statement.

Sharing the statement on ‘X’, he posted, “SEBI’s inability to reach a final conclusion in the matter of round-tripping and money-laundering allegations against the Adani Group is deeply worrying.”

The Congress leader said that of the 24 matters SEBI looked into, two still have interim status.

Ramesh said one of the interim reports relates to the important question of whether Adani violated the Minimum Public Shareholding requirement under Rule 19A of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Rules.

“In simple terms, did Adani use opaque entities based in overseas tax havens to engage in the kind of round-tripping and money laundering that the PM has always claimed to oppose? SEBI has stated that the reason for the delay is that information from external agencies and entities is still awaited,” he added.

The country, Ramesh said, is clearly paying a heavy price for the SEBI’s decision in 2018 to dilute and in 2019 to delete the reporting requirements relating to the ultimate beneficial ownership of foreign funds.