The Congress on Friday demanded an investigation by the SEBI and RBI into charges of alleged financial irregularities against the Adani Group, which has denied the charges.
Congress general secretary Communications Jairam Ramesh said the forensic analysis by the Hindenburg research into the Adani Group requires serious investigation by bodies like the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as they are responsible for ensuring stability and security of the country’s financial system.
“We fully understand the close relationship between the Adani Group and the current government. But it is incumbent on the Congress party as a responsible opposition party to urge SEBI and RBI to play their roles as stewards of the financial system and to investigate these allegations in the wider public interest,” Ramesh said in a statement.
Hindenburg Research has alleged that Adani Group was “engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud”, a charge the conglomerate described as malicious, unsubstantiated, one-sided, and having done with malafide intention to ruin its share-sale.
Hindenburg, a US-based investment research firm that specialises in activist short-selling, said its two-year investigation reveals that “the Rs 17.8 trillion (USD 218 billion) Indian conglomerate Adani Group has engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.”
Adani Group said it was shocked to see the report that came out without any attempt to contact it to get the factual matrix. “The report is a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations that have been tested and rejected by India’s highest courts,” the ports-to-energy conglomerate said in a statement.