"Who is behind plan to protect her": Rahul Gandhi on SEBI's chairperson reluctantancy to face questions of parliamentary panel

New Delhi [India], October 24 : Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Madhabi Puri Buch, for skipping a meeting with the Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday claiming that someone was behind the plan to protect her from being answerable to the PAC.
"Why is Madhabi Buch reluctant to answer questions before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament? Who is behind the plan to protect her from being answerable to the PAC?" Rahul Gandhi posted on X.
Meanwhile, the Parliament's PAC on Thursday postponed its meeting after it witnessed a ruckus after SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch did not appear before the committee.
SEBI chairperson Madhabi Buch was scheduled to appear before the PAC in the national capital on Thursday, as per sources.
KC Venugopal of the Congress, who heads the PAC, told reporters that Madhabi Buch informed him on Thursday morning that she is not in a position to travel to Delhi.
"In the first meeting of the committee itself, we decided to have a suo moto subject for review of our regulatory bodies. That is why we called SEBI, today morning for a review of SEBI. The committee branch sends the notice to the concerned people. First of all, they sought an exemption, SEBI chairperson sought an exemption from appearing before the committee which we denied. After that, she confirmed she and her team would be present on this committee... Today morning, she (SEBI chairperson, Madhabi Puri Buch) informed me that she is not in a position to travel to Delhi. Considering a woman's request we thought that it is better to postpone today's meeting for another day," Venugopal said.
BJP Leader Ravi Shankar Prasad criticised KC Venugopal for discussing the proceedings of the PAC meeting outside or with the media and accused the opposition members of unparliamentary conduct.
"Generally, we don't discuss the proceedings of standing committees or PAC's meetings outside. It pains us that the chairman of the PAC, KC Venugopal, gave a byte outside. We were in the majority in the PAC meeting today. We objected to his suo moto decision to choose the subject, did he ask anyone? We had serious reservations about the procedure adopted in the PAC meeting... It was strange, he (KC Venugopal) rose suddenly and walked away," he said.
"PAC's work is to discuss the report of CAG, but how did he decide to take suo moto subject? We have reports from trustworthy sources that CAG hasn't given any paragraph over SEBI in its report... Today's conduct of the chairperson of the PAC--the way he didn't allow us to speak and walked away is unparliamentary and politically motivated. Hence, we are going to register our complaint to Lok Sabha speaker," he added.
Earlier in September this year, in a joint statement, SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch rightly termed the allegations labeled against them in the recent past as "false, incorrect, malicious and motivated".
Madhabi and Dhaval Buch asserted that their income tax returns have been obtained by the accusers by illegally and by adopting fraudulent means.