Reacting to the Supreme Court expert committee’s report on Adani-Hindenburg, the Congress said efforts to spin the report as a “clean chit” to the Adani Group are “wholly bogus”. The Congress further underlined the need for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe in the matter.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, who had been issuing a daily set of questions on the issue for a long time, said his party had long maintained that the committee had extremely limited terms of reference and will simply be unable, and perhaps unwilling too, to unravel the scam in all its complexity.
However, he said, contrary to the boasts of the government, the committee has found that regulations have moved in direction of opacity that facilitates the disguise of ultimate beneficial ownership.
‘No definitive conclusion’
He said the committee has ben unable to come to any definitive conclusion regarding violation of SEBI laws by the Adani Group.
“Since no definitive conclusion can be drawn on the basis of information it had, the committee concludes that there has been no regulatory failure by SEBI,” Ramesh said.
He highlighted two excerpts from page 106 and page 144 which strengthen the case for a Joint Parliamentary Committee which the Congress has been demanding — “(a) SEBI is unable to satisfy itself that the contributors of the funds to the FPIs are not linked to Adani” — which brings us back to the question of the unaccounted funds of at least ₹20,000 crores. (b) LIC was the largest net buyer of Adani securities with the purchase of 4.8 crore shares when the price shot from ₹ 1,031 to ₹ 3,859” — which raises the question on whose interest was LIC acting,” said Ramesh quoting the committee report.