[HM:245059] Top Ten (10) "Scams" in "India"

Dear All,

* Top Ten (10) "Scams" in "India"

India as a nation is not alien to the concept of scams. After all, the nation has been rocked by 

scams for as long as one can remember. Take a look at some of the scams.

TT Krishnamachari and Jawaharlal Nehru
Mundhra scandal (1957)

It can be said that the media had a large role to play in suggesting that there was a scam involved regarding sale of shares to LIC. Feroze Gandhi was credited with having sourced the confidential correspondence between the then Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari and his finance secretary and raised a question in the parliament on the sale of the alleged shares to LIC by a Marwari businessman by the name of Haridas Mundhra. Subsequently, then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru set up a one-man commission headed by Justice MC Chagla to investigate the matter when it became evident that there was a prima farcie case. Chagla concluded that Mundhra had sold fictitious shares to LIC, thereby defrauding the insurance behemoth to the tune of Rs 1.25 crore.
Mundhra was sentenced to 22 years in prison and as expected T.T.Krishnamachari also resigned.

BOFORS SCAM (1987)

Bofors scam was largely responsible for tarnishing the clean image of Rajiv Gandhi when the then Prime Minister Rajiv and several of his associates were accused to receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India's 155 mm field howitzer. The scale of the corruption was far worse than any that India had seen before and led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections. It was estimated that the amount involved was around Rs 40 crore. On February 5, 2004, the Delhi High Court quashed the charges of bribery against Rajiv Gandhi and others. On May 31, 2005 the court dismissed the allegations against the British business brothers, Shrichand, Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja.

Later Ottavio Quattrocchi, accused as the middleman in the scandal because of his intimacy with Rajiv and his Italian born wife Sonia Gandhi, was from the case by a Delhi court due to lack of credible evidence.

LALOO PRASAD YADAV

FODDER SCAM (1996) 

The fodder scam involved embezzlement of a massive Rs 950 crore from the government treasury of the eastern state of Bihar, which involved the fabrication of fictitious livestock for which fodder, medicines and animal husbandry equipment was supposedly procured. Later, it was found out that this had been going on for over two decades. The scam continues to garnar attention from the Indian media due to the involvement of tenured bureaucrats, elected politicians and business people. The scam was brought to light by Amit Khare, the then deputy commissioner of West Singhbhum, when he raided the animal husbandry department at Chaibasa, where documents conclusively indicated large-scale embezzlement by an organized mafia of officials and businesspeople.

The CBI took up the issue and subsequently all those involved were dealt wih fittingly, among which the most high profile name was of the then Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav.

P. CHIDAMBARAM

VANISHING COMPANIES SCAM (1998) 

Little did the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram know that his passing remark would cause such a furore over what was a badly-kept secret on Dalal street. He was told that hundreds of companies had disappeared after raising money from the public, leading to an informal scrutiny that over 600 companies were missing, leading Chidambaram to order a probe by the SEBI. As ordered SEBI conducted a raid in the same year which revealed that many companies were missing. Chidambaram ordered a probe by SEBI. 

The SEBI probe conducted in May 1998 revealed that while many companies are not traded on the bourses at least 80 companies that had rises Rs 330.78 crore were simply missing. Later that year, the Department of Company Affairs (DCA) was asked to probe and penalize these companies. However, investigations continue to this day.

KETAN PAREKH

STOCKMARKET SCAM (2001) -

The key figure in the stockmarket scam of 2001, Ketan Parekh, a chartered accountant by training, came from a family of brokers, which helped him create a trading ring of his own. In the period between 1999 and 2001, the stock market in India sprang to life, and following which investment firms, mostly controlled by listed companies, overseas corporate bodies or cooperative banks all were ready to hand money to Parekh which was used by him to rig up stock prices. As a result, scrips like Visualsoft rose from Rs 625 to Rs 8,848 per share and Sonata software from Rs 90 to Rs 2,150. 

Parekh's party ended rather abruptly a day after the Union Budget was presented in February 2001. A bear cartel started disrupting Parekh's party by hammering prices of the K-10 stocks , precipitating a payment crisis in Kolkata. Later, as SEBI conducted investigations, it became evident that bank funds were used to rig markets. In March 2011, the mayhem wiped off over Rs 1,15,000 crores from the markets. The chief accused Parekh was arrested in March that year and was in custody for a period of 53 days, and debarred from trading in the Indian stosck exchanges till 2017.

ABDUL KARIM TELGI

STAMP PAPER SCAM (2003) 

The main accused in the stamp paper scam, Abdul Karim Telgi earned money largely by printing counterfeit stamp paper in India. As Telgi started printing fake stamp paper, he appointed 300 agents who then sold the fakes to bulk purchasers including banks, insurance companies and share-broking firms. 

The scam which also involved police officers and many government employees was estimated to be around 20,000 crores. That same year, Telgi and his associates were sentenced to a term of 10 years imprisonment.

SCORPENE SUBMARINE SCAM (2005)

The Scorpene deal scam has gone down in history as one of India's largest bribery corruption scandals, in which Rs 500 crore is alleged to have been paid to government decision makers by Thales, the makers of the Scorpene submarine. The amount was channeled via middlemen such as Abhishek Verma. Also involved was Ravi Shankaran, a relative of the then chief of navy staff Arun Prakash. He is the prime accused in the navy war room scandal and was selling defence documents to the Thales.

In October 2005, defence minister Pranab Mukherjee approved the Rs 19,000 crore submarine deal with French company Thales. Scorpene submarines are now being built in India under a technology transfer agreement that was part of that contract.

SATYAM SCAM (2009)

Satyam Computers, the name that has now become synonymous with corruption was founded by Ramalinga Raju in the year 1987. A botched acquisition attempt involving Maytas in December 2008 led to a plunge in the share price of Satyam. In January 2009, Raju indicated that Satyam's accounts had been falsified over the years. Raju also admitted to an accounting dupery to the tune of Rs 7,000 crore rupees and resigned from the Satyam board.

Subsequently, Raju and his brother, B Rama Raju, were then arrested by the Andhra Pradesh police. Raju was convicted of cheating six million shareholders and is being held in Hyderabad's Chanchalguda jail.

MADHU KODA MINING SCAM (2009)

During his tenure, former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Madhu Koda was charged with laundering money worth over 4000 crores. Later, when the enforcement directorate conducted raids they unearthed assests allegedly worth 4000 crores. Assets included hotels, three companies in Mumbai, property in Kolkata, a hotel in Thailand and a coal mine in Liberia.

In fact, this scam was listed as the second-largest scam uncovered in India that year. Presently, Madu Koda is spending his time at the Birsa Munda Central Jail at Hotwar.

SURESH KALMADI

COMMONWEALTH GAMES SCAM (2010) 

The scam that made Suresh Kalmadi, chairman of the organising committee of the games infamous involved large scale misappropriation of money estimated to the tune of almost about a staggering 70,000 crores during the initial preparatory phase as well as during the games. Like any other scams in the past, the games scam involved a large network of politicians, bureaucrats and corporates acting in collusion. After extensive inquiry, it was found out that various contracts were manipulated by a corrupt Kalmadi and his even more corrupt team. 

Just imagine - liquid soap dispensors were rented for Rs 9,379 a piece , operating expenses escalated from Rs 399 crore in December 2002 to Rs 1,628 crore finally, medical equipment including tread mills were brought or rented at way past the asking rate. Today, Kalmadi and most of the people associated with the scam are in jail.

 

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