New Delhi: Pharma giant Wockhardt refuted Congress Party allegations regarding alleged payments made by its arm Carol Info Services to SEBI chief Madhabi Puri Buch for a rented property. “In this regard, we categorically deny these allegations and state that these allegations are completely baseless and misleading,” according to a regulatory filing on Friday. Wokhardt stated that it had acted in compliance with the law and will continue to do so.
Congress Leader Pawan Khera held a conference on Friday to allege a conflict of interest on Puri’s part stating that she received Rs 2.16 crore as rental income from the company Carol Info Services. This took place even as the markets regulator probed Wockhardt for insider trading in 2023, Khera said.
Carol Info Services allegedly paid Rs 7 lakh rent to Buch for one of her properties in 2018-19. This rose to Rs 36 lakh in 2019-20 and Rs 46 lakh in 2024, added Khera. Buch was named SEBI’s whole-time member in 2018.
Wokchardt’sshare price slipped 1.70 per cent in the past 5 days. The company’s stock value was up 16.22 per cent in the past month and 86.71 per cent in the past 6 months. The company’s share price rose over 300 per cent in the past year. The company’s share price plunged 5 per cent on Friday after the Congress alleged payment made by the pharma and hospital management company to SEBI chief Buch for a rented property.
In June 2023, Wockhardt’s former head of pharma research, Yatendra Kumar, was asked to disgorge losses avoided by insider trading, Moneycontrol reported. Disgorgement implies returning funds that were amassed in an illegal or unethical manner. Kumar was aksed to disgorge funds to the tune of Rs 14,23 lakh and banned from securities markets for 6 months.
In a probe, SEBI found that Kumar sold over 7,000 shares of Wockhardt ahead of the notification of US FDA’s form 483 to the pharma company for objectionable conditions discovered during a facility inspection consulted by the US drug safety regulator.
