Madhabi Puri Buch

US short-seller Hindenburg Research has stated that SEBI head Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband invested in offshore entities that were allegedly part of a fund structure managed by India Infoline and in which Vinod Adani, Gautam Adani’s brother, also had investments.

Madhabi is a seasoned finance professional with over two decades of experience in the financial services sector. She has held various leadership positions in organizations such as ICICI Securities and Prudential ICICI Asset Management Company. Her expertise lies in areas such as capital markets, investments, and regulatory compliance.

With over three decades of experience in the financial markets, Buch was a SEBI whole-time member between April 5, 2017, and October 4, 2021, during which she handled portfolios such as surveillance, collective investment schemes and investment management. During this time, she was known for cracking down on fraudulent tradings by two prominent television anchors of a business news channel.

In 2017, Buch passed a number of orders banning trading in suspected shell companies, based on the list drawn up by the government during its drive against black money.

In 2021, she passed a controversial order in the insider trading case of Deep Industries Limited. The regulator had examined Facebook profiles of the accused entities and found they were ‘friends’ on the platform and had ‘liked’ each other’s posts. “An insider can be by way of their association in any capacity or it can be by way of frequent communication with its officers, which can also be in their social capacity as evident in this case by frequent interactions, including on social media,” Buch said in her order.

After her tenure as a whole-time member of SEBI, Buch became the head of a seven-member expert group that was formed to help the regulator design in-house technological systems.