In a joint statement on September 13, SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch out rightly termed the allegations labelled against them in the recent past as “false, incorrect, malicious and motivated”.
The allegations themselves were based on their Income Tax Returns, the six-page joint statement said, asserting there was no merit in those allegations.
“In other words, all these matters are a part of our income tax returns in which all these matters have been fully disclosed and taxes have been duly paid,” the joint statement read.
Madhabi and Dhaval Buch asserted that their income tax returns have been obtained by the accusers by illegally and by adopting fraudulent means.
“This is a clear breach of not only our right to privacy (which is a fundamental right) but also a violation of the Income Tax Act. The facts, transparently reflected in our income tax returns, have been twisted deliberately to create a false narrative. Further, going by the pattern of creating a false narrative at periodic intervals, it appears that the allegations are being made in instalments, only to keep the pot boiling,” the statement read.
“If the objective had been to arrive at the truth rather than to malign individuals and institutions with distortions of facts, we wonder why all allegations would not be brought out, in public, at one go, we would then have given all the facts at one go. If, however, this false narrative is motivated, to achieve some other objective, then the possibility of further allegations being made repeatedly in instalments in the future may not be ruled out,” they added.
The couple asserted that they are upright and honest professionals and have led their respective professional lives with transparency and dignity.
“Though everyone can see a clear pattern emerging to distort and twist the facts, we are confident that we will be able to demolish all such motivated allegations even in future, while reserving our right to take appropriate legal remedy as we may be advised,” they said.
“The fact that so far, allegations are being made with new falsehoods each time, in instalments, makes it clear that the only intention is to keep distorting facts, to keep making false allegations again and again to build a false narrative.
The couple claimed that those who are labelling allegations against them do not want to arrive at the truth.
On September 2, Pawan Khera, Chairman, Media and Publicity Department, Congress, charged Madhabi Puri Buch of receiving regular income from private lender ICICI Bank and ICICI Prudential, while being the whole-time member and later Chairperson of the capital markets regulatory body.
ICICI Bank responded by saying that the lender or its group companies have not paid any salary or granted any employee stock ownership plan (ESOPs) to SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch after her retirement, other than her retiral benefits.
As recently as September 6, the Congress party had alleged that the SEBI Chairperson in a possible conflict of interest, received rental income from an affiliated company of the pharma company Wockhardt.
Wockhardt categorically denied these and in a filing with the exchanges asserted that these allegations were completely baseless and misleading.
Madhabi and Dhaval Buch also responded to allegations regarding consulting assignments of Dhaval Buch and the firms’ Agora Advisory in India and Agora Partners in Singapore.
“There seems to be an assumption that when a spouse of a senior government official is appointed as an advisor, it must be attributed to factors beyond professional merit. Such assumptions overlook the strength of qualifications and expertise and reach conclusions that are most unfortunate,” Madhabi Puri Buch and Dhaval Buch’s statement read.
The joint statement also mentioned Dhaval Buch’s qualifications and work experience, asserting that his appointments were based on merit and not because he was the SEBI Chairperson’s spouse.
“Dhaval is an engineer from IIT Delhi and has 35 years of experience, including as an Executive Director on the Board of Hindustan Unilever which he joined in 1984. He retired in 2019 from Unilever as the Global Head of Procurement where he was responsible for USD 40 billion per annum of procurement for Unilever across the globe. Prior to that he ran the entire Unilever Supply Chain in Asia and Africa consisting of 120 factories. He has his own strong reputation as a leading professional in his field,” the joint statement said rubbishing all conflict of interest allegations.
“Despite the transparency and professional clarity given by these organizations, it is unfortunate that the need to justify decisions taken by such respected companies, based purely on Dhaval’s expertise, has to be undertaken by them and by us,” the joint statement said.
(with inputs from ANI)
