Meeting of Parl PAC to be held tomorrow, Sebi chief to appear: Report

Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch is scheduled to appear before the Parliament's Public Accounts Committee in the national capital on Thursday, sources said.

The meeting will be held in Delhi on Thursday at 11 am. The PAC is headed by K C Venugopal of the Congress.

Acccording to the sources the meeting agenda includes oral evidence of representatives of the finance ministry and the Securities and Exchange Board of India as part of the committee's decision to go for the "performance review of regulatory bodies established by Act of Parliament".

"Oral evidence of the representatives of the Ministry of Communications, Department of Telecommunications and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on the subject, 'Performance Review of Regulatory Bodies established by Act of Parliament'," sources added.

Earlier in September this year, in a joint statement on Friday, 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.

Madhabi and Dhaval Buch asserted that their income tax returns have been obtained by the accusers by illegally and by adopting fraudulent means.

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.