Sebi board likely to have new faces as Anshuman, Govil exit

The board of the capital markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will have a new look as two members exit after the end of their respective terms to make way for two incoming candidates. The Sebi chief, while also a full-time member of the board, reports to it.

IIM Bangalore professor V Ravi Anshuman and bureaucrat Manoj Govil, who joined the board in 2019 and 2022, respectively, are exiting. The former’s five-year tenure with the regulator has ended and the latter’s role is being reassigned from corporate affairs secretary to expenditure secretary at the Centre.

Anshuman and Govil – both part-time members at Sebi – were appointed by the government. While Govil will be replaced by Deepti Gaur Mukerjee, the new corporate affairs secretary, at Sebi, it is not known who would replace Anshuman at the regulator.

The other two part-time members on Sebi board are Ajay Sheth, economic affairs secretary, and M Rajeshwar Rao, deputy RBI governor. The other five members on the Sebi board, including its incumbent chief Madhabi Puri Buch, are full-time members.

The four full-time members are former SBI MD Ashwani Bhatia, banking and financial market veteran Ananth Narayan, Sebi lifer Amarjeet Singh and bureaucrat Kamlesh Varshney. Sebi didn’t respond to ET’s emailed query on board changes. The four full-time members have thrown their weight behind Buch, who is caught in the eye of a storm after American short-seller Hindenburg Research accused the Sebi chairperson and her husband Dhaval Buch of holding stakes in an obscure offshore fund that had been part of a complex structure used by Vinod Adani, brother of Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani. Hindenburg suggested a link between Buch and the Adani Group, and alleged that Sebi’s inquiry into the conglomerate, sparked by its January 2023 report, was therefore compromised.Madhabi Puri Buch has denied Hindenburg’s allegations. There has been no word from Sebi’s part-time members on the Madhabi-Hindenburg issue.

According to Sebi’s code on conflict of interests for board members, the disclosures by the chairperson must be scrutinised by the board. Also, if the board determines there is a conflict of interest in a particular case, then the chair has to refrain from dealing with it. Sebi’s board, said sources, will be holding its meeting soon – its first since Hindenburg’s report on Buch’s alleged investment and business exposures.

At the meeting, sources said, Buch could clarify the Hindenburg allegations. Former bureaucrat and ex-Sebi board member Subhash Chandra Garg has described Buch’s equity in Agora Advisory -a Mumbai-based company promoted by her and her spouse-and its continued business operations as a serious breach of conduct.