Scams and scandals in India SINCE

INDEPENDENCE
Corruption in India


India is becoming the heaven for corruption and
scams. From common man to top politicians, all are
trying to grab public money by any means.

Corruption in government offices and departments,
land acquisition, hospitals, income tax, etc. has become
the norm.

Judiciary, the highest authority associated with law
also shock people when judges of Supreme courts are
exposed for taking bribes.


Corruption in India contd.

Armed forces also displayed Indian corrupted mentality
several times and even succumbed to personal gains while
keeping the country's defense at stake!

And do not ask about the law makers in our Parliament!

In India even the priests in temples and other religious places
are not above question when it comes to corruption!

Some bitter facts!

India tops the list for black money in the entire world
with almost US$ 1456 billion in Swiss Banks that is
about $1.5 trillion!

India has more black money than the rest of the
world combined: Swiss Banking Association Report.

India was ranked 87
th
out of 178
th
countries in
Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions
Index in 2010.


Some bitter facts! contd.

Inter-state transport: Truckers in India alone pay $5
billion (yes, US Dollars) in bribes annually.


There is a Bangalore based website, which encourages
citizens to report bribes anonymously they have paid, has so
far compiled 21,038 reports with a total bribe value of
about Rs. 53,19,15,991!

List of scandals in India

Jeep Purchase(1948) Rs. 80 lacs!

Cycle Import scam(1951)

BHU funds misappropriation(1956) Rs. 50 lacs!

The Mundhra Scandal(1958) Rs. 1.2 crore!

Teja loan scandal(1960) Rs. 22 crore!

Pratap Singh Kairon scam(1964)


List of scandals in India contd.
Kaling tubes scandal(1965)

Maruti Scandal(1974)

Cement Scam involving A R Antulay(1981) - Rs. 30 crore!

Bofors Scandal(1987)

Indian Bank scandal(1992) Rs. 1,300 crore!

Harshad Mehta securities scam(1992) - Rs. 5,000 crore!

List of scandals in India contd.

Fertilizer import scam(1996) - Rs. 133 crore!

Sukh Ram telecom equipment scandal(1996)

Bihar fodder scam(1996) - Rs. 950 crore!

Bihar land scam (1997) - Rs. 400 crore!

Hawala scandal(1997)

Ketan Parekh securities scam(2001)






List of scandals in India contd.
Kargil coffin scam(2002)

Telgis Stamp paper scam (2002) - Rs. 20,000 crore!

Taj corridor scandal(2003)

Bihar flood relief scam(2005) - Rs. 17 crore!

Haryana Teachers' recruitment scam(2008)

The Satyam scam(2008)






List of scandals in India contd.
Hasan Ali black money controversy(2008)

Cash for Vote Scandal(2008)

Madhu Koda mining scam(2009)

Karnataka land scam(2010)

Indian Premier League scandal(2010)

Madhya Pradesh MGNREGA scam (2010) - Rs. 9 crore!


List of scandals in India contd.
Commonwealth Games scam(2010)

Adarsh Housing Society scam(2010)

Tatra scam (2011) - Rs. 750 crore!

KG Basin Oil scam(2011)

ISRO's S-band scam(2011) Rs. 200,000 crore!

Indian coal mining controversy(2012) Rs. 185,591.34 crore!

Jeep Purchase(1948)

The history of
corruption in post-
Independence India starts
with the Jeep scandal in
1948.

V K Krishna Menon, the
then High Commissioner
for India in London signed
a deal with a foreign firm
worth Rs 80 lakh for jeeps
for the Indian Army in
Kashmir without observing
normal procedure.

Jeep Scam contd.

The then Government announced on September 30, 1955
that the Jeep scandal case was closed, despite the demand of
the opposition for judicial inquiry as suggested by the Inquiry
Committee led by Ananthsayanam Ayyangar.

Union Minister GB Pant said "that as far as Government was
concerned it has made up its mind to close the matter. If the
opposition is not satisfied they can make it an election issue."

Soon after, on February 3, 1956 V K Krishna Menon was
inducted into the Nehru cabinet as minister without portfolio.

The Mundhra Scandal(1958)
It was the media that first hinted there might be a scam
involving the sale of shares to LIC by Calcutta based
industrialist and stock speculator Haridas Mundhra.

The Mundhra Scandal contd.
Feroz Gandhi sourced the confidential correspondence
between the then Finance Minister T. T. Krishnamachari and
his principal finance secretary, and raised a question in
Parliament on the sale of 'fraudulent' shares to LIC by Haridas
Mundhra.

The then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, set up a one-man
commission headed by Justice MC Chagla to investigate the
matter. Chagla concluded that Mundhra had sold fictitious
shares to LIC.

Mundhra was sentenced to 22 years in prison. The scam also
forced the resignation of T. T.Krishnamachari.

Bofors Scandal(1987)
The Bofors scandal is known as the
hallmark of Indian corruption. The Bofors
scam was a major corruption scandal in
India in the 1980s.

PM Rajiv Gandhi and several others
including a powerful NRI family named the
Hindujas , were accused of receiving
kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid
to supply Indias 155 mm field howitzer.

The Swedish State Radio had broadcast a
startling report about an undercover
operation carried out by Bofors , Swedens
biggest arms manufacturer, whereby $16
million were allegedly paid to members of
PM Rajiv Gandhis Congress.




Bofors Scandal contd.
The name of the middleman
associated with the scandal was Ottavio
Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman
who represented the petrochemicals
firm Snamprogetti.

Quattrocchi was reported close to
the family of Prime Minister Rajiv
Gandhi and emerged as a powerful
broker in the 1980s between big
businesses and the Indian government.

Bofors Scam contd.
A Delhi court discharged Quattrocchi from the case, as there
was no credible evidence against him, on 4 March 2011

Cement Scam involving A R
Antulay(1981)
AR Antulay(former Maharashtra CM) had garnered Rs 30 crore
from businesses dependent on state resources like cement,
and kept the money in a private trust.

Cement Scam involving A R
Antulay contd.

He was forced to resign as Chief Minister of Maharashtra after
the Bombay High Court convicted him of extortion on January
13, 1982.

The court ruled that Antulay had illegally required Bombay
area builders to make donations to Indira Gandhi Pristhan
trust, one of several trust funds he had established and
controlled, in exchange for receiving more cement than the
quota allotted to them by the Government.

Harshad Mehta securities
scam(1992)

Harshad Mehta was a stock broker on the
Bombay Stock Exchange and had an expensive
lifestyle.

Through the second half of 1991, Mehta
had earned the sobriquet of the 'Big Bull',
because he was said to have started the bull
run.

On April 23, 1992, journalist Sucheta Dalal
exposed Mehta's illegal methods in a column
in The Times of India. Mehta was dipping
illegally into the banking system to finance his
buying.

Harshad Mehta securities scam
contd.
The game went on as long as the stock prices kept going up, and no one
had a clue about Mehta's modus operandi. Once the scam was exposed,
the banking system had been swindled of a whopping Rs 4,000 crore.

The Chairman of the Vijaya Bank committed suicide by jumping from his
office roof. He knew that he would be accused if people came to know
about his involvement in issuing cheques to Mehta.

Mehta made a brief comeback as a stock market guru in 1998, giving tips
on his own website as well as a weekly newspaper column. This time
around, he was working with owners of a few companies and
recommended only the shares of those companies. This game, too, did not
last long.

By the time he died, Mehta had been convicted in only one of the many
cases filed against him.

Lalus Bihar fodder scam(1996)

The Fodder Scam involved
the alleged embezzlement
of about Rs 950 crore from
the government treasury of
Bihar.

Although the scandal broke
in 1996, the theft had been
in progress, and increasing
in size, for over two
decades.

Lalus Bihar fodder scam contd.
Besides its magnitude and the
duration for which it was said to
have existed, the scam was and
continues to be covered in Indian
media due to the extensive nexus
between tenured bureaucrats,
elected politicians and
businesspeople that it revealed.

As it became evident that Bihar
Chief Minister Lalu Prasad was
involved in this scam, he had to
resign as chief minister.

Hawala scam(1997)
The Hawala scandal involved
payments allegedly received by
politicians through hawala brokers,
the Jain brothers.

It was a Rs 70 crore bribery scandal
that implicated some of the country's
leading politicians.

There were also alleged connections
with payments being channelled to
Hizbul Mujahedeen militants in
Kashmir.

Hawala scam contd.
The scandal surfaced following CBI
raids on hawala operators in Delhi in
1991. The accused included LK
Advani, VC Shukla, P Shiv Shankar,
Sharad Yadav, Balram Jakhar and
Madan Lal Khurana.

Many were acquitted in 1997 and
1998, partly because the hawala
records (including diaries) were
judged in court to be inadequate as
the main evidence.

The failure of this prosecution by the
Central Bureau of Investigation has
been widely criticised.


Barak Missile scandal(2001)

The Barak Missile Scandal is a case of
alleged defense corruption relating to
the purchase of Barak 1 Missile
Systems by India from Israel.


The then Defence Minister, George
Fernanda's, resigned after the Tehelka
sting operation tapes were made public,
but he was reinstated later.

Part of the tapes show the treasurer of
his party talking about accepting bribes
of 1 crore or more.

Stamp Paper Scam (2003)

Abdul Karim Telgi began printing fake
stamp paper in 2003.


His monthly profits have been
estimated about Rs 202 crore. The
size of the scam was estimated to be
more than Rs 43,000 crore.

Stamp Paper Scam(2003) contd.
A videotape emerged in September 2006 of Abdul Karim Telgi
taking a Narco Analysis test.

Under the influence of the supposed truth serum, Telgi is said
to have blurted out the names of NCP leaders Sharad Pawar
and Chaggan Bhujbal.

On June 28, 2007 Telgi was sentenced to rigorous
imprisonment for 13 years and fined a whopping Rs 202 crore
on various counts in one of the main cases of the scandal.

Scorpene submarine deal scam (2006)
Scorpene submarine deal scam contd.
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 channelled 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(2008)
Ramalinga Raju founded Satyam
Computers in 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 a number of years.

He admitted to an accounting dupery
to the tune of Rs 7,000 crore rupees
and resigned from the Satyam board
on January 7, 2009.

Satyam scam contd.

Satyam scam contd.

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 on charges
including embezzlement, insider trading, breach of trust,
conspiracy, cheating, and falsification of records.

Hasan Ali black money
controversy(2008)

Hassan Ali is allegedly worth $9 billion
or more, according to law authorities.

The Government of India has also
confirmed the existence of this account
in UBS, and ordered him to pay Rs
50,000 crore in taxes on that wealth.

However, according to Khan, he is a
scrap dealer with an annual income of
Rs 30 lakh.

Some sources claim that he might be
the fourth richest person in India and
amongst the world's dollar billionaires.

Hasan Ali black money controversy
contd.
The Enforcement Directorate(ED),
Income Tax department along with the
Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of
Maharashtra are probing the illegal
investments and charges of money
laundering against Khan.

The Supreme Court of India
questioned the Central Government's
inertia on this issue.

Despite this, the Central Government
doesn't intend to prosecute Khan
under India's money laundering law
simply because it hadn't gone into
effect at the time the alleged crimes
were committed.

2G spectrum scam(2010)
2G spectrum scam contd.

Telecoms minister A.Raja introduced unique procedure for
allocation, he allocated by first in first served policy.

What Mr A. Raja has done is that, he given away the spectrum
to his favorites, important thing to note that Karunanidhi's
family holds large share of Telecoms and Television Networks
in Tamilnadu.

The spectrum was sold in the price of 2001,in 2008. The loss
from 2G spectrum allocation is about Ra 1.76 lakh Corers, Rs
1400 per man in the country.

What makes this big is that, the amount country loose in 2G
Spectrum allocation is more than India annual income From
Export Business.
2G spectrum scam contd.

The major beneficiary of this deal was Reliance and Tata, it is
evident from the tapes that having the conversation between
Corporate middle men and Minister A. Raja.


The whole credits to bring out the scam in to light goes to
Janatha party president Mr. Subramaniam Swami who filed an
affidavit in the Supreme court, CPI(M), CPI, BJP and all the left
parties.

2G spectrum scam contd.
CWG scam(2010)
On 28 July 2010, the Central
Vigilance Commission released a
report showing irregularities in up
to 14 CWG projects.

The detailed preliminary findings
included the award of work
contracts at higher prices, poor
quality assurance and
management, and work contracts
awarded to ineligible agencies
CWG scam contd.
There were also allegations of
widespread corruption in various
aspects of organizing the games
including procurement and
awarding contracts for
constructing the game venues.

The CWG Organizing Committee,
on Aug 5, 2010, suspended joint
director T S Darbari and deputy
director general Sanjay
Mahendroo following the report of
the three-member panel which
was probing the financial
irregularities related to the
Queen's Baton Relay.

CWG scam contd.
Also, Organizing Committee
treasurer Anil Khanna resigned from
the post in the wake of allegations
that his son's firm had secured a
contract for laying synthetic courts
at a tennis stadium.

Among the alleged corruption and
defrauding of the games budget,
toilet paper rolls valued at $2 were
costed at $80, $2 soap dispensers at
$60, $98 mirrors at $220, $11,830
altitude training simulators at
$250,190.


CWG scam contd.
CWG Organizing Committee Chief Suresh Kalmadi's conduct
also came under scrutiny, with the CVC asking the CBI to
probe certain aspects of the games' organization.

On April 25, 2011 after being questioned over alleged
irregularities in the conduct of Queen's Baton Relay (QBR)
held in London in 2009, CBI arrested Kalmadi under Sections
120 B and 420 (criminal conspiracy and cheating) of the Indian
Penal Code in the Commonwealth Games Time Scoring
Equipment scam.

Adarsh Housing Society scam(2010)


In 2010, Indian media brought
to public the violations of rules
at various phases of
construction in the Adarsh
Society - an apartment complex
reserved for the war widows
and veterans of the Kargil War.

Adarsh Housing Society scam contd.
Several inquiries have been ordered by the army and the
Government to probe into the irregularities.

Adarsh Housing Society scam contd.

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh formally set the ball
rolling for the demolition of the entire 31-story scam-tainted
Adarsh building in Coloba's eco-sensitive zone on Friday
November 12, 2010.

Ramesh sent a show cause notice to the Adarsh housing
society, saying that "all options under the law are open except
regularisation of the structure".

Coal mining controversy(2012)
The report of the Controller and
Auditor General of India (CAG) on coal
block allotment to private parties
amounts to a very damaging
accusation of financial irregularity.

States such as Rajasthan, Chhatisgarh
and West Bengal have opposed a
bidding process, Jaiswal said. This has
left the state dispensation route a
major source of corruption open.

Coal mining controversy contd.
Examining the parties in power in these States since 2004, it is
obvious that political groupings across the ideological spectrum
Left, Right and Centre are allegedly involved in the scam.

Coal mining controversy contd.
Similarly, the industry players
who secured coal blocks
were from varied
backgrounds including
those with no track record in
power generation or even
manufacturing.

Yet, they managed to secure
coal blocks against proposed
projects.

Conclusion
Let us end this presentation in a positive and optimistic
manner!

Can we do something to eradicate corruption?

Yes, we can!
Raise our voice against it
Dont take and/or give bribe
Educate people about it
Exercise our power of VOTE judiciously
Inculcate moral values in children
Support Anti-Corruption movements


The life and future of the nation is secure
only when the nation is corruption free.
JAI HIND!