The Congress on Tuesday reiterated its call for a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate the “Adani scandal” and the “integrity” of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, following reports by Scroll about the markets regulator’s chairperson Madhabi Buch and the firms set up by her.

“More questions have emerged about potential malpractice by the SEBI [Securities and Exchange Board of India] Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch,” Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.

“Regulatory filings from a consulting firm established by her before her appointment as SEBI Chairperson reveal that the firm is registered at the same address as its statutory auditor,” he said.

This followed a report published earlier in the day by Scroll about the consultancy firm, Agora Advisory Private Limited, and its statutory auditor being registered at the same address. The report also cited documents filed with the Registrar of Companies showing that Madhabi Buch continued to hold 99% stake in Agora Advisory till as late as March 2024, even though she had stepped down as director in 2017.

Documents filed with the Registrar of Companies also showed that Agora Advisory made Rs 3.63 crore in revenue from its operations between 2019 and 2024. This contradicts the SEBI chairperson’s claim that the firms she set up became immediately dormant when she began working with the market regulator in 2017.

Ramesh on Tuesday said that although Madhabi Buch has resigned as a director of Agora Advisory, her husband Dhaval Buch has been a director since 2019.

The Congress MP added that a firm and its auditor sharing the same address was a sign of poor corporate governance. “The ICAI [Institute of Chartered Accountants of India] code of ethics requires statutory accountants to avoid bias, conflicts of interest, or undue influence. Sharing a location suggests such bias.”

The development comes two days after American short-seller Hindenburg Research alleged that Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch had “hidden stakes” in offshore entities tied to stock price manipulation and money laundering by the Adani Group.

In response, the Security and Exchange Board of India said that Madhabi Buch disclosed details about her security holdings and recused herself in matters that potentially involved a conflict of interest.

The market regulator also said that it has adequate internal mechanisms for addressing any conflict of interest, which include a “disclosure framework and provision for recusal”.

On Tuesday, Scroll also reported that Hindenburg Research had flagged two firms set up by Madhabi Buch before she became a member and chairperson of Securities and Exchange Board of India.

One of them was Agora Partners, an offshore Singaporean consulting firm, and an Indian consulting business, Agora Advisory.

Hindenburg pointed out that the firm had reported Rs 1.98 crore in revenue from operations in 2021-’22, more than four times Madhabi Buch’s salary as the chairperson of the the Security and Exchange Board of India.

On X, Ramesh said that Madhabi Buch and her husband “misled the public” by claiming that the consulting firms “became immediately dormant upon her appointment with SEBI”.

Ramesh said that a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation into the matter was “increasingly necessary”.

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