Hey Guys we the team of HELPING SURFERS INC. has come up with SCAM 1992 Most of the people have a confusion about is it real, how do its exist, when and how?? etc questions. In this part we are going to share information about. So let's begin.
Beginning
We somewhat owe Harshad Mehta for my career as a business journalist. Before the1992 Indian stock market scam involving Harshad Mehta was reported, I was trying to create a new beat called ‘economic offences’ or ‘white-collar crime’ in Mumbai. This involved following the ongoings at the Income Tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, etc.
My reportage for the Navbharat Times on the probes into the scam and the in-and-out about the country’s economy and its financial sector put me on a steep learning trajectory.
So, naturally, watching the SonyLIV Original web series ‘Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story’ took me back to the early nineties, when I covered the scam in Delhi.
Our False Statement
My strongest memory from back then is about my meeting with the then Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Joint Director K Madhavan who shot to fame after his investigation into the Bofors scam.
I met safari-clad, pouch-carrying Madhavan on the very day he was asked to take over the Harshad Mehta scam. It was an informal meeting in his office. I asked him a few questions, shared my perspective on the investigation, and pointed out a few missing links. By this time, we got a sense that it was all too murky and that high stakes were involved in the case. I clearly remember cautioning Mr Madhavan and telling him that he will not be able to complete the probe.
Investigative agencies and the media were still struggling to make a holistic sense of the scam. While some called it the ‘stocks scam’, others named it the ‘banking scam’ or the ‘securities scam’. However, the easy and lazy stuck with the label of ‘The Harshad Mehta Scam’.
Harshad Mehta was ranged against well-entrenched market lords, backed by some of Mumbai’s big businessmen and inefficient regulators. What happened after is a matter of record.
Mehta, with the help of Ram Jethmalani, made the most sensational allegation during a press conference in Mumbai – that he had carried Rs 1 crore cash to the then prime minister Narasimha Rao’s house.
All hell broke loose, and the investigation got heavily politicised. Things got quite complicated, with Mr Madhavan shunted out of the probe. Our kali zubaan!
Cleaning Up The System
Watching the web series also took me back to the days of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe. We followed it closely for months, attending its media briefings at 12 am, and sometimes, even later at 2 am, though most newspaper journalists would go to bed by midnight.
This probe grabbed headlines for long. After the Haridas Mundhra Scam (which is touted as newly Independent India’s first financial scam, involving a Calcutta-based stockbroker) and the 1971 Nagarwala scandal (that rocked the banking sector in the early seventies), that generation of Indians saw its first high-profile scam, involving foreign and Indian bankers, brokers, corporates, bureaucrats, and politicians. It was sensational.
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