India’s market regulator is facing a threat to its credibility after a barrage of allegations against its chief, top fund managers have told the BBC.
Multiple charges, mostly around conflict of interest, have surfaced against Madhabi Puri Buch, chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), from at least four different corners over the past month. She has denied most of them and not publicly responded to some.
This comes amid a bull run in India’s equity markets, which are among the world’s best performing this year.
Foreign investors have pumped in over $6bn (£4.5bn), while millions of new mom-and-pop investors have opened electronic accounts to invest in a mutual funds and initial public offering (IPO) frenzy.
Trouble for Ms Buch began in August when US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research accused her and her husband of holding investments in an offshore fund used by the Adani Group, implying it was why Sebi was dragging its feet on an investigation against Adani over allegations of accounting fraud and market manipulation.
Since then a number of other accusations have come to the fore.
The main opposition Congress party has accused Ms Buch of receiving rental income from a company she was investigating. It has also alleged that she held an “office of profit” at ICICI Bank, one of India’s largest private lenders, continuing to earn large sums of money through Employee Stock Ownership Plans (Esops) long after her stint with them was over.
