Congress urges RBI, SEBI for independent probe into ‘PM-blessed’ Adani case

Congress MP Jairam Ramesh urged the SEBI chairperson and RBI governor’s intervention in the matter and ensure that India’s taxpayers do not bear the brunt for the Adani Group’s stock manipulation and other business malpractices.

The Congress wrote a letter to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch alleging the public sector institutions like the Life Insurance Company (LIC) and the State Bank of India (SBI) of being “unusually generous” to the Adani Group, leading the India’s banking sector to a possible destabilisation. Congress MP Jairam Ramesh urged the chairperson and governor’s intervention in the matter and ensure that India’s taxpayers do not bear the brunt for the Adani Group’s stock manipulation and other business malpractices.

Ramesh pointed out that the Adani Group has been under excessive debt exposure and that the RBI must look into two aspects of the matter – the true exposure of the Group and kind of explicit and implicit guarantees it has by the Indian banks that will bail the Group out after its foreign funding dries up.

“As the steward of the financial system, the RBI must do everything possible to protect India’s banks and financial institutions, and we urge you to act in the national interest to ensure that India’s taxpayers do not pay the price for the misgovernance and potential illegalities of one influential business house,” the letter read.

Addressing to the SEBI chairperson, Ramesh said the Group’s involvement in ‘brazen stock manipulation’ violates several Indian laws and goes against what the board stands for. “Given the Adani Group’s size and political connections, it is incumbent that such investigations are seen as fair and complete, with no favour shown to the influential business group,” he said.

The Congress MP further asked about LIC and SBI “heavily buying” Adani Group’s equity amid most private funds being severely underweight due to concerns over corporate governance and indebtedness.