The US-based research firm Hindenburg on Tuesday accused the regulator SEBI of hiding the role of Kotak Mahindra Bank in short-selling Adani Group firms’ shares.

“While SEBI seemingly tied itself in knots to claim jurisdiction over us, its notice conspicuously failed to name the party that has an actual tie to India: Kotak Bank, one of India’s largest banks and brokerage firms founded by Uday Kotak, which created and oversaw the offshore fund structure used by our investor partner to bet against Adani. Instead, it simply named the K-India Opportunities fund and masked the ‘Kotak’ name with the acronym ‘KMIL‘,” Hindenburg said in a long post on July 2.

Hindenburg alleged that SEBI’s omission of Kotak’s name may be meant to protect the businessman Uday Kotak from scrutiny. KMIL is Kotak Mahindra Investments Ltd. Kotak Mahindra Bank, a private sector lender and brokerage firm founded by Uday Kotak, created and oversaw the offshore fund structure used by the investor partner of US-based Hindenburg to short Adani stocks, said Hindenburg.