In addition to the Congress, Subhash Chandra, the chairman emeritus of Zed Entertainment Enterprises, attacked Securities and Exchange Board of India Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch on Monday. The markets regulator is currently looking into allegations of fund diversion totalling over Rs 2,000 crore from the massive media company.
The accusations were described as “malicious and opportunist” by a senior Sebi official. Until the time of going to print, the Sebi chief had not responded to Chandra’s accusations.
The 73-year-old media mogul demanded further research and analysis in response to allegations of wrongdoing at Sebi. He claimed that in February, a man named Manjit Singh, who had been sent to him by the chairperson’s secretary of a bank, had asked him to settle all outstanding matters at Sebi in exchange for a “price.”
“I am convinced that the Sebi chairperson is corrupt since she and her husband whose combined income, which was around Rs 1 crore per annum before she assumed the position at Sebi, has now gone up to Rs 40-50 crore per annum. This needs to be investigated by media and investigating agencies, including analysis of the settled and compounded cases and the consultation fees paid by such corporates and received by the Sebi chairperson and her connected persons. These are many ways she and her husband extort money from corporates and stock market corrupt operators and fund managers,” he alleged.
According to sources, the Sebi probe into Chandra’s actions has shown that there was a larger-than-expected fund diversion from Zed. According to them, the regulator is already serving new show-cause notices to Chandra and his son Puneet Goenka on the issue.
Chandra further claimed that Buch was receiving “heft sums of money” from former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, and that the two of them spoke on the phone for at least 20 times a day.
“It was Kochhar and her husband, and Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband working in tandem. Hence, Madhabi Puri Buch was paid hefty sums of money by ICICI while she was the WTM at Sebi,” Chandra said.
Sebi had banned Chandra and his son Punit Goenka from holding important positions in four group companies in an order from August 2023. Sebi had accused cash diversion and fraudulent actions by promoters from Shirpur Gold Refinery, an Essel Group company, in June 2023.
The $10 billion merger between Zed and Sony’s India division in Japan was derailed by the uncertainties caused by Sebi’s proceedings against the founders.
“The Zee-Sony merger was moving along nicely and had received permission from the stock exchange. In spite of this, Sebi gave BSE/NSE instructions to interfere in NCLT proceedings and thwart the merger by alarmed Sony. In the end, Sony called off the merger, which greatly reduced the worth of the minority stockholders”, according to Chandra.
Additionally, he disagreed with Sebi’s decision to punish two mutual fund institutions for their investments in the group.
