SEBI chief skips Parl panel meet

A meeting of the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was postponed on Thursday after embattled SEBI chief Madhabi Puri Buch informed the panel at the eleventh hour about her inability to travel to the national capital to appear before it.

Congress MP KC Venugopal, who heads the panel, told reporters that he received a message from Buch at 9.30 am that she would not be able to travel to Delhi to appear before it following which it was decided to postpone the meeting.

“At the first meeting of the committee, we had suo motu decided to carry out a review of our regulatory bodies. That is why we had called the SEBI chief this morning for a review of the market regulator. First, the SEBI chairperson sought an exemption from appearing before the committee, which we denied. She then confirmed that she and her team would appear before the committee... At 9.30 am today, she informed me that she is not in a position to travel to Delhi,” Venugopal said.

BJP MPs who are members of the PAC had earlier objected to the decision of the committee to summon Buch, who is facing allegations of conflict of interest, levelled against her by Hindenburg Research.

Soon after Venugopal announced that the meeting had been postponed owing to Buch’s absence, the BJP members remained seated and later met Speaker to complain against the procedure adopted by the PAC chairman. Later, BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “We had serious reservations about the procedure adopted for the PAC meeting... Today’s conduct of the PAC chairperson (Venugopal) — the way he didn’t allow us to speak and walked away — is unparliamentary and politically motivated.”