Hindenburg report: Sebi member's family ties with Adani cited in SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court was told that a member of Security Exchange Board of India (Sebi)’s committee on corporate governance has family ties with the Adani group.

The court was hearing a batch of petitions in the Adani-Hindenburg case when the new dimension in the case cropped up, as per a report in India Today.

‘Sebi has an apparent conflict of interest in investigating the Adani group since an employee, Cyril Shroff's daughter, is married to Karan Adani, Adani Group Chairperson Gautam Adani's son,’ the affidavit filed by petitioner Anamika Jaiswal reportedly said.

Cyril Shroff is the managing partner of the law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.

Sebi's committee, where Cyril Shroff is a member, deals with offences such as insider trading, the report cited one of the petitioners as claiming.

The affidavit filed in response to the status report submitted by Sebi further claimed that Sebi brought about a ‘series of amendments only to benefit Adani.’

The petitioners alleged that Sebi concealed an alert issued by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in January 2014 regarding Adani’s siphoning off money and investing it in Adani-listed companies via entities based in Dubai and Mauritius, according to the report.

Alongside concealing the alert, the market regulator did not investigate the DRI alert, they argued adding Sebi ‘suppressed facts which amounted to perjury’.

Sebi’s status report to the Supreme Court said ‘Among the 24 investigations conducted, 22 have been finalized while 2 remain interim.’

Adding further, the board claimed to be awaiting responses from external agencies regarding ‘two ongoing probes’.

The Supreme Court is likely to consider the case on September 15.