Friday, April 8, 2011

Support grows for India's anti-corruption fast


(CNN) -- Support swelled for an anti-corr
uption crusader in India, as his indefinite hunger strike seeking tough new graft laws entered its third day Thursday.
Hunger-striker Anna Hazare wrote a stiff letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, after his office insisted in a statement that talks failed because activists demanded their version of a citizen ombudsman bill be accepted in totality.
"It is being said that the government wants to talk to us and we are not talking to them. This is utterly false. Tell me a single meeting when you called us and we did not come. We strongly believe in dialogue and engagement. Kindly do not mislead the country by saying that we are shunning dialogue," Hazare wrote to Singh in a letter which was released to the media.
Meantime, demonstrators showed their support for Hazare in the streets of New Delhi and several other cities. Protesters carried flags, candles and banners condemning corruption.
The 72-year-old Hazare began his "fast-unto-death" at New Delhi's Jantar Mantar observatory on Tuesday.
Hazare's campaign comes in the wake of a series of high-profile alleged scandals that have rocked Singh's administration and investor confidence in Asia's third largest economy.
The activist demanded that long-pending citizen ombudsman legislation, called the Lokpal bill, be widened in its scope.
Hazare and his supporters reject the government's draft of the bill because it does not empower the proposed bodies to prosecute corruption suspects.
"Dear Prime Minister, so far, every government has shown complete insensitivity and lack of political commitment to tackling corruption. Sixty-two years after independence, we still do not have independent and effective anti-corruption systems. Very weak versions of (the) Lokpal bill were presented in parliament eight times in (the) last 42 years. Even these weak versions were not passed by parliament," Hazare noted in his letter to Singh.
"This means, left to themselves, the politicians and bureaucrats will never pass any law which subjects them to any kind of objective scrutiny," he wrote.
"At a time, when the country has witnessed scams of unprecedented scale, the impatience of the entire country is justified. And we call upon you, not to look for precedents, but show courage to take unprecedented steps," he urged the prime minister.
The activist, who has refused politicians space on his platform, alleges corruption was all pervasive in India's overall political establishment with only few exceptions.
Last weekend, a former government minister in India was among a dozen defendants charged in a multi-billion-dollar telecom scandal.
Andimuthu Raja, a former telecommunication minister, is accused of being involved in a scheme involving the underselling of cell phone licenses at the height of India's lucrative telecom boom.
Police have questioned several high-profile executives in connection with the suspected below-price sale of radiowaves in 2008.
Politicians, bureaucrats, and corporate officials linked to the probe have denied any wrongdoing.
According to a government audit, the treasury lost as much as $31 billion from the 2008 sale of the second-generation wireless spectrum.
The damning audit report came on the heels of allegations of massive fraud in sports and real estate.
Two parliamentary committees are conducting separate inquiries into the case.
Investigators are already probing complaints of financial malfeasance in the Commonwealth Games that India hosted in October last year.
Several politicians, military officials, and bureaucrats have also been the subjects of a separate inquiry for allegedly taking apartments meant for war widows.

Total Scam Noney after 1992

Total scam money (approx) in Rs crore since 1992:
73000000000000"
(73 lakh Crore)
"1992 Harshad Mehta securities scam Rs 5,000 cr
1994 Sugar import scam Rs 650 cr
1995 Preferential allotment scam Rs 5,000 cr
Yugoslav Dinar scam Rs 400 cr
Meghalaya Forest scam Rs 300 cr
1996: Fertiliser import scam Rs 1,300 cr
Urea scam Rs 133 cr
Bihar fodder scam Rs 950 cr
1997 Sukh Ram telecom scam Rs 1,500 cr
SNC Lavalin power project scam Rs 374 cr
Bihar land scandal Rs 400 cr
C.R. Bhansali stock scam Rs 1,200 cr
1998 Teak plantation swindle Rs 8,000 cr
2001 UTI scam Rs 4,800 cr
Dinesh Dalmia stock scam Rs 595 cr
Ketan Parekh securities scam Rs 1,250 cr
2002 Sanjay Agarwal Home Trade scam Rs 600 cr
2003 Telgi stamp paper scam Rs 172 cr
2005 IPO-Demat scam Rs 146 cr
Bihar flood relief scam Rs 17 cr
Scorpene submarine scam Rs 18,978 cr
2006 Punjab's City Centre project scam Rs 1,500 cr,
Taj Corridor scam Rs 175 cr
2008 Pune billionaire Hassan Ali Khan tax default Rs 50,000 cr
The Satyam scam Rs 10,000 cr
Army ration pilferage scam Rs 5,000 cr
The 2-G spectrum swindle Rs 60,000 cr
State Bank of Saurashtra scam Rs 95 cr
Illegal monies in Swiss banks, as estimated in 2008 Rs 71,00,000 cr
2009:
The Jharkhand medical equipment scam Rs 130 cr
Rice export scam Rs 2,500 cr
Orissa mine scam Rs 7,000 cr
Madhu Koda mining scam Rs 4,000 cr"

"What India Could Do With Rs 73 Lakh Crore

Build: 2.4 crore primary healthcare centres. That’s at least 3 for every village, at a cost of Rs 30 lakh each.
Build: 24.1 lakh Kendriya Vidyalayas at a cost of Rs 3.02 crore each, with two sections from Class VI to XII.
Construct: 14.6 crore low-cost houses assuming a cost of Rs 5 lakh a unit.
Set up: 2,703 coal-based power plants of 600 MW each. Each costs Rs 2,700 crore.
Supply: 12 lakh CFL bulbs. That’s enough light for each of India’s 6 lakh villages
Construct: 14.6 lakh km of two-lane  highways. That’s a road around India’s perimeter 97 times over.
Clean up: 50 major rivers for the next 121 years, at Rs 1,200 crore a river every year.
Launch: 90 NREGA-style schemes, each worth roughly Rs 81,111 crore.
Announce: 121 more loan waiver schemes. All of them worth Rs 60,000 crore.
Give: Rs  56,000  to every Indian. Even better, give Rs 1.82 lakh to 40 crore Indians living BPL.
Hand out: 60.8 crore Tata Nanos to 60.8 crore people. Or four times as many laptops.
Grow the GDP: The scam money is 27% more than our GDP of Rs 53 lakh crore."

Madhu Koda Scam 2009 l Rs 4,000 crore

Madhu Koda (born January 6, 1971) is an Indian politician who was Chief Minister of Jharkhand from 2006 to 2008. He was sworn in as the fifth Chief Minister of Jharkhand on September 18, 2006 and remained in office until he resigned on 23 August 2008; he was succeeded by Shibu Soren. He had eight ministers in his cabinet. Koda is the third independent legislator to assume the office of chief minister of an Indian state, including Bishwanath Das in Orissa in 1971 and S. F. Khonglam in Meghalaya in 2002.


Money-laundering and mining scam

On 10th Oct 2009, he was charged with laundering money worth over Rs. 4000 crores.[7] In nationwide raids by the Enforcement Directorate, assets allegedly worth Rs. 4000 crore — almost a fifth of the annual budget of the state he once ruled — were unearthed. Among others, these assets were reported to include hotels and three companies in Mumbai, property in Kolkata, a hotel in Thailand, and a coal mine in Liberia.[8] This alleged scam is said to be the second-largest scam uncovered in India in 2009 and gets his name included in the list of controversial Indian businessman like Hasan Ali Khan and Harshad Mehta. Minister of State for Home Ajay Maken said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) may be asked to probe this scam, in addition to Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Income Tax Department.[9] . ED is behind his two close associates Mr.Binod Sinha and Mr.Sanjay Chowdhary. Binod is behind bars and Sanjay has escaped to Dubai.
In the probes, it was found that Maoists received a 30% share of the "Koda plunder".[10] This has led to staunch criticism of Koda from sections of society, including the oppostition Bharatiya Janata Party. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi stated Koda was part of a corrupt network of Congress Party who stole money from Jharkhand.[11]

Life in jail

Madu Koda is spending his time in jail like any other prisoner of the Birsa Munda Central Jail at Hotwar. He remained confined to his room in the upper division ward. Unlike his fellow arrested corrupt politicians who regularly complain of ill health and high blood pressure, Koda was normal. "His behaviour was normal and he did not try to create a scene like his former cabinet colleagues," said a jail official. Koda wakes up around 6.30 in the morning. He later watches news on local TV channels and also goes through newspapers.[12]
While he was in jail, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) said that they will also expose Goa's Madhu Koda during the forthcoming state legislative assembly session.[13][14] BJP also alleged that state support to illegal mining and corruption in Goa’s mining industry had reached ‘unacceptable levels’. Mining for low grade iron ore and manganese is one of the principal industries in the state, fetching nearly Rs.6,000 crore revenue from exporting the ore to countries like China and Japan. The 100 mines in Goa export nearly 30 million tonnes of iron ore annually


Securities Scam 1992 l Rs 4,000 crore

In April 1992, press reports indicated that there was a shortfall in the Government Securities held by the State Bank of India. Investigations uncovered the tip of an iceberg, later called the securities scam, involving misappropriation of funds to the tune of over Rs. 3500 Crores. The scam engulfed top executives of large nationalized banks, foreign banks and financial institutions, brokers, bureaucrats and politicians: The functioning of the money market and the stock market was thrown in disarray. The tainted shares were worthless as they could not be sold. This created a panic among investors and brokers and led to a prolonged closure of the stock exchanges along with a precipitous drop in the price of shares. Soon after the discovery of the scam, the stock prices dropped by over 40%, wiping out market value to the tune of Rs. 100,000 crores. The normal settlement process in government securities was that the transacting banks made payments and delivered the securities directly to each other. The broker’s only function was to bring the buyer and seller together. During the scam, however, the banks or at least some banks adopted an alternative settlement process similar to settlement of stock market transactions. The deliveries of securities and payments were made through the broker. That is, the seller handed over the securities to the broker who passed them on to the buyer, while the buyer gave the cheque to the broker who then made the payment to the seller. There were two important reasons why the broker intermediated settlement began to be used in the government securities markets:
  • The brokers instead of merely bringing buyers and sellers together started taking positions in the market. They in a sense imparted greater liquidity to the markets.
  • When a bank wanted to conceal the fact that it was doing an Ready Forward deal, the broker came in handy. The broker provided contract notes for this purpose with fictitious counterparties, but arranged for the actual settlement to take place with the correct counterparty. This allowed the broker to lay his hands on the cheque as it went from one bank to another through him. The hurdle now was to find a way of crediting the cheque to his account though it was drawn in favour of a bank and was crossed account payee. It is purely a matter of banking custom that an account payee cheque is paid only to the payee mentioned on the cheque. In fact, privileged (corporate) customers were routinely allowed to credit account payee cheques in favour of a bank into their own accounts to avoid clearing delays, thereby reducing the interest lost on the amount. The brokers thus found a way of getting hold of the cheques as they went from one bank to another and crediting the amounts to their accounts. This effectively transformed an RF into a loan to a broker rather than to a bank. But this, by itself, would not have led to the scam because the RF after all is a secured loan, and a secured loan to a broker is still secured. What was necessary now was to find a way of eliminating the security itself.
Three routes adopted for this purpose were:
  1. Some banks (or rather their officials) were persuaded to part with cheques without actually receiving securities in return. A simple explanation of this is that the officials concerned were bribed and/or negligent. Alternatively, as long as the scam lasted, the banks benefited from such an arrangement. The management of banks might have been sorely tempted to adopt this route to higher profitability.
  2. The second route was to replace the actual securities by a worthless piece of paper – a fake Bank Receipt (BR). A BR like an IOU has only the borrower’s assurance that the borrower has the securities which can/will be delivered if/when the need arises.
  3. The third method was simply to forge the securities themselves. In many cases, PSU bonds were represented only by allotment letters rather than certificates on security paper. However, it accounted for only a very small part of the total funds misappropriated. During the scam, the brokers perfected the art of using fake BRs to obtain unsecured loans from the banking system. They persuaded some small and little known banks – the Bank of Karad (BOK) and the Metropolitan Cooperative Bank (MCB) – to issue BRs as and when required. These BRs could then be used to do RF deals with other banks. The cheques in favour of BOK were, of course, credited into the brokers’ accounts. In effect, several large banks made huge unsecured loans to the BOK/MCB which in turn made the money available to the brokers.
Securities Scam 2001
In Spite of the recommendations made by the Janakiraman Committee Report in 1992 to prevent security scams from happening in the future another security market took place in 2001. This involved the actions of one major player by the name of Ketan Parekh. He manipulated a large amount of funds in the capital market though a number of his own companies which is probably why the scam remained a mystery for quite some time the RBI,SEBI and DCA(Department Of Company affairs) had gone slack in their regulatory operations.During 1999 and 2000 the SENSEX reached a high and after than the stock market crashed in 2001.Some of the major companies he invested in were Nirma, Adani Group, Essel Group,DSQ and Zee Cadila.Ketan Parekh manipulated the stock market through FII’s (Foreign Institutional Investors), OCB’s (Overseas Commercial Borrowings),Banks and Mutual Funds(Unit Trust Of India). In fact an important extension of this scam remains the Unit Trust Of India Scam.

India GDP verview till 2011

The India GDP is a combination of all the differential factors, contributing to the welfare of the India economy. India GDP gives us a combined report of the performance of the Indian economy. 'Cost factor' or 'Actual price' method - these are the two methods to calculate Indian Gross Domestic Product. The main factor that contributed to the growth of India GDP post 1990s was the opening-up of the Indian economy...
                                           The balance-of-payments crisis of the 1980s of the Indian economy led to the paradigm shift of the Indian Economy. The markets were opened up; the Government leveraged the entry of private investments. As a result of this, more investments flowed into the markets. More so by the foreign direct investments (FDIs) and foreign institutional investors (FIIs), the India GDP growth saw a phenomenal increase. Bulk of the Government undertakings were divested into lots of private business houses.
Gauging the health of the India economy - India GDP is the best tool! Going by figures, India GDP has already crossed the trillion-dollar mark, other peers in this sphere being US, Japan, Germany, China, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Brazil and Russia. After the liberalization era of the India economy, the growth story of the India GDP was driven by the following sectors of Indian industry -


  • Information Technology
  • Information Technology Enabled Services
  • Telecommunications
  • Electronics and hardware
  • Automobiles
  • Pharmaceuticals and biotechnology
  • Consumer durables
  • Retail
  • Textiles
  • Infrastructure
  • Construction
  • Airlines
  • Hospitality
  • Power
  • Oil and natural gas
  • Fertilizers and chemical

Factors governing the Indian Economy


  • GDP (purchasing power parity) $4.046 trillion (2010)
  • GDP - per capita (PPP) $3,400 (2010)
  • GDP (official exchange rate) $1.43 trillion (2010)
  • GDP - composition by sector Services: 55.3% (2010 est.) Industry: 28.6% Agriculture: 16.1%
  • India Budget Revenues: $170.7 billion Expenditures: $257.4 billion (2010)
  • Unemployment rate 10.8% (2010)
  • Labor force: 478.3 million (2010)
  • Labor force divided by occupation Agriculture: 52 percent Industry: percent Services: 34 percent (2009)
  • Population below poverty line 25 percent (2007)
  • Household income in India or consumption by percentage share Highest 10 percent: 31.1 percent (2005) Lowest 10 percent: 3.6 percent
  • Distribution of family income - Gini index 36.8 (2004)
  • Inflation rate (consumer prices) 11.7 percent (2010.)
  • Public debt
    55.9 percent of GDP (2010.)
  • Central bank discount rate
    6 percent (31 December 2009)
  • Commercial bank prime lending rate
    12.19 percent (31 December 2009)
  • Reserves of foreign exchange and gold in India
    $284.1 billion (31 December 2010)
  • Agriculture - products in India
    Rice, wheat, lentils, cotton, jute, tea, oilseed, jute, sugarcane, onions, potatoes; sheep, dairy products, poultry, goats and fish
  • India Industries
    Textiles, petroleum, food processing, software, chemicals, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, machinery and pharmaceuticals
  • Import partners of India
    US 7.16%, Saudi Arabia 5.36%, China 10.94%, Australia 5.02%, Germany 4.86%, UAE 5.18% and Singapore 4.02% (2009)
  • Industrial production growth rate in India
    9.7 percent (2010)
  • Electricity production in India
    723.8 billion kWh (2009)
  • Electricity consumption in India
    568 billion kWh (2007)
  • Electricity imports in India
    5.27 billion kWh (2009)
  • Electricity exports in India
    810 million kWh (2009)
  • Oil - production in India
    878,700 bbl/day (2009)
  • Oil imports in India
    2.9 million bbl/day (2007)
  • Oil exports in India
    738,600 bbl/day (2007)
  • Natural gas production in India
    38.65 billion cu m (2009)
  • Natural gas consumption in India
    51.27 billion cu m (2009
  • Import commodities in India
    Crude oil, fertilizer, machinery, precious stones, steel, iron and chemicals

Year wise comparison of India's GDP



Below is a table that shows the year wise comparison of India's GDP from the year 2003 to 2011

Year GDP Real Growth Rate
2003 4.30 percent
2004 8.30 percent
2005 6.20 percent
2006 8.40 percent
2007 9.20 percent
2008 9.00 percent
2009 7.40 percent
2010 7.40 percent
2011 8.30 percent


Graph on GDP of India from 2003 to 2011



Below is a table that shows the year wise comparison of India's Constant Price GDP from the year 2003 to 2011

Year GDP Constant Price
2003 6.852
2004 8.106
2005 9.167
2006 9.658
2007 9.886
2008 6.396
2009 5.678
2010 9.668
Graph on Constant GDP of India from 2003 to 2011



Interesting Facts about Outsourcing in India



  • Indian outsourcers will earn $220-280 billion by 2012
  • Outsourcing consists of 7 percent of India's GDP
  • The outsourcing companies in India will earn $10.73 billion by 2011
  • Outsourcing witnessed a striking growth of 8.1 percent in 2008
  • Salaries of the Indian software industry went up 18.7 percent in 2006
  • Human Resource services went up by 8 percent in India in 2006
  • Small scale business enterprises that outsource IT services in India end up spending about 5 percent on maintenance and up gradations
  • Human Resource outsourcing increased by almost $18.9 billion in 2010
  • IT offshore expenses in India reached $29.4 billion in 2010
  • Outsourcing of Mobile network grew to $55.3 billion in 2010
  • The back office and software industry in Indian generated $23.6 billion in the year fiscal 2005-2006
  • The total revenue generated by the Outsourcing industry in India is $23.4 billion
  • The Business process outsourcing market went up 33 percent in 2005
  • 29,000 jobs were available in India in 2008
  • The outsourcing industry in India employs about 1.2 million people and contributes $23.4 billion to the Gross Domestic Product
  • 38% of multinational companies plan to change the distribution of their research and development centers within the next 3 years
  • The Desktop management outsourcing in India reached $28 billion in 2005
  • Export of services and software from India reached $17.2 billion in the fiscal year 2005
  • The test outsourcing and Packaging industry in India reached $15.5 billion in 2005
  • The number of outsourcing contracts went down by 10-15 percent in 2005
  • The Indian outsourcing industry brought in $12 billion in 2004

IPO Scam 2006 l Rs 61 crore

IPO Scams - Overview
IPO Scams are well structured game played by the absolute opportunists consisting of intermediaries, financiers and bank employees, who make a lot of money by controlling shares meant for retail investors in Initial Public Offer (IPO), as the per the statement of the Securities Exchange Board of India. In the last few years, the capital market in India went through a rapid transformation. The increased use of information technology and the integration of financial markets have stepped up the risk profile of the capital market.The two major IPO scams in the Indian Capital market were the Harshad Mehta scam in the year 1992 and the Ketan Parekh scam in the year 2001. The IPO Scams opened up the latent loopholes in the Indian capital market
IPO Scams - Causes
  • Two of the most common factors of the major IPO scams in India were the tacit consent of the banks and the poor surveillance techniques.
  • The Depository Participants must be provided the proof of identity and proof of address as a routine check for the opening demat accounts. This was not followed.
  • Numerous dematerialized accounts and bank accounts had been opened under false names and the IPO applications were made in non existing names.
IPO Scams - How it was done?
  • At first bank accounts were opened up in fictitious or "benami" names, which allowed these fictitious account holders to open demat accounts.
  • The master account holders, the person who had executed the planning acts as an intermediary on behalf of the financiers.
  • The shares acquired at the IPOs were disposed on the date of listing at a premium to get more than the amount of money invested.
  • The banks played an important part by means of opening bank accounts and giving loans to the fictitious entities for the purpose of earning fee incomes.

Hawala Scandal 1996 l Rs 810 crore


The Hawala scandal or hawala scam was an Indian political scandal involving payments allegedly received by politicians through hawala brokers, the Jain brothers. It was a US$18 million dollar bribery scandal that implicated some of the country’s leading politicians. There were also alleged connections with payments being channelled to Hizbul Mujahideen militants in Kashmir.
Those accused included Lal Krishna Advani who was then Leader of opposition. He and others 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 was widely criticised.

Hawala Bribery case is the name of the scam of $18 million (Indian Rs.650 million) allegedly paid by one Surindra Kumar Jain, to top Indian politicians and bureaucrats, between February 1988, and April 1991, through an illegally established foreign exchange called Hawala. This scam has poisoned the political atmosphere of India, the so called biggest democracy of the world, in such a way that it has overlapped the three major political parties of that country including the ruling Congress (I), Party, whose seven ministers had to resign. The major opposition party viz. The Hindu fund

NEW DELHI, AUG 28: Former Chief Justice of India (CJI) J S Verma who headed the Bench that monitored the Jain-hawala case, today said investigating agencies had not done a satisfactory job in probing the case, otherwise it would not have been possible for all the charge-sheets to end up in a fiasco.
“The hawala case was one in which the Court had granted complete insulation to the investigating agencies from extraneous circumstances. We even relieved them of the power of supervision by the highest authority in the executive (the Prime Minister) and yet they could not perform,” Justice Verma said, adding this proved that mere insulation was not enough.
Verma said if after investigating and filing a charge-sheet, the accused had been discharged in every case, it only went to show that the agencies did not investigate properly so as to collect materials to be put up along with the charge-sheet.
“It appears clear now that they only put up an excuse of filing a charge-sheet because if the discharge of accused is justified then apparently there was no prima facie case put up along with the charge-sheet for the trial to commence,” Justice Verma said, adding that if there was no justification, no evidence available from the investigation, they should not have filed the charge-sheet


Details of bank drafts seized by 20 Grenadiers from Abdul Ahad, allegedly Jamaat-e-Islami funds to be passed on to the Hizbul Mujahideen.
The Criminal Investigation Department of the State police, which should have monitored the affair, found itself helpless in the face of the challenge of pursuing hawala cases outside the State's boundaries. The CBI, too, made no effort to use the evidence on offer in the bank drafts case to substantiate its allegations against Geelani. Just why all these agencies acted as they did, Frontline was unable to ascertain: officials agreed to speak only off the record and then offered nothing of substance.
The Army's inept management of the demand draft affair and the State CID's incompetence have in effect crippled any real chance of arriving at the truth of Geelani's funding sources and their deployment. There was no real evidence to back the central charges in the CBI's FIR, that Geelani received hawala funds from overseas sponsors and that these funds were converted into personal assets in a corrupt manner. Abdul Ahad's bank drafts, properly investigated, might have thrown light on that point. "We could have pursued the leads against Qazi Ahadullah and Bhatt," says a senior State police official, "and tried to establish just where the money had come from, and precisely what it was intended for." "Now," he concludes, "the lack of coordination between investigative agencies has created a situation where even if we find out the truth, our case will most likely be laughed out of the trial court." Syed Ali Shah Geelani, though he may strenuously deny the proposition, could owe his political future to the Indian Government.

Bofors Scam Year : 1987 Rs 64 crore

The Bofors scandal was a major corruption scandal in India in the 1980s; then the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and several others were accused of 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 directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections. It has been speculated that the scale of the scandal was to the tune of Rs. 400 million.[1] The case came to light during Vishwanath Pratap Singh's tenure as defence minister, and was revealed through investigative journalism by Chitra Subramaniam and N. Ram of the newspapers the Indian Express and The Hindu.... 
The name of the middleman associated with the scandal was Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who represented the petrochemicals firm Snamprogetti. Quattrocchi was reportedly 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. While the case was being investigated, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991 for an unrelated cause. In 1997, the Swiss banks released some 500 documents after years of legal battle and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a case against Quattrocchi, Win Chadha, also naming Rajiv Gandhi, the defence secretary S. K. Bhatnagar and a number of others.In the meantime, Win Chadha also died.
                                                              Meanwhile February 5, 2004, the Delhi High Court quashed the charges of bribery against Rajiv Gandhi and others, but the case is still being tried on charges of cheating, causing wrongful loss to the government, etc. On May 31, 2005, the High Court of Delhi dismissed the Bofors case allegations against the British business brothers, Shrichand, Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja . 
                                                        In December 2005, the Mr B. Daat, the additional solicitor general of India, acting on behalf of the Indian Government and the CBI, requested the British Government that two British bank accounts of Ottavio Quattrocchi be unfrozen on the grounds of insufficient evidence to link these accounts to the Bofors payoff. The two accounts, containing € 3 million and $1 million, had been frozen. On January 16, the Indian Supreme Court directed the Indian government to ensure that Ottavio Quattrocchi did not withdraw money from the two bank accounts in London. The CBI, the Indian federal law enforcement agency, on January 23, 2006 admitted that roughly Rs 21 crore, about US $4.6 million, in the two accounts have already been withdrawn. The British government released the funds based on a request by the Indian government. The deals cost the Government of India an extra 160 crore rupees.

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

Rs 400 crore insurance scam

In a financial fraud estimated to involve more than Rs 400 crore, Delhi Police arrested a 52-year-old senior accounts officer of the Indian Railways for allegedly siphoning off money contributed by 65,000 employees for a Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) policy as part of a group insurance scheme. Police said the contributing employees were kept in the dark even as the cooperative society collected Rs 32.5 lakh from them every month and ran their own insurance scheme, even paying off claims.
The police have now roped in auditors to assess the cooperative society accounts to understand the amounts involved and what was done with the money. The fraud was reportedly going on for the past 10 years from Baroda House and investigators say more arrests are likely. Another employee who headed the cooperative society is already under scanner and some LIC employees could also be involved, police said.
                                            The first accused, Ajay Bhatnagar, was arrested by the Tilak Marg police recently after it was revealed that he, as member of the elected body of the cooperative society, took a whopping Rs 1.2 crore as commission from LIC for another employees' policy. The commission was collected in the name of Bhatnagar wife and sister-in-law.
                                              It all started in 1998 when the Northern Zone Railway Employees Cooperative and Thrift Credit Society Limited (NZRECTC Ltd) decided to launch an LIC scheme for its members. As per the scheme, each member had to contribute Rs 50 per month against which were to be allotted an LIC policy. The society paid Rs 32.5 lakh per month as joint policy premium and it was agreed with LIC that there will be no commission for the premium.
                                              The society took two LIC policies. The first (policy No. OGI-311434) with a premium of Rs 32 lakh per month for all members was opened at the KG Marg branch of LIC. The other scheme ^ individual policies for 35,663 members - was started at Wazirpur branch.
                                              The first policy lapsed in 2002 due to non-payment and LIC informed the society about it. The cooperative's governing body did not inform its 65,000 members about the lapse and diverted the amount into the society's account at Allahabad Bank. Initially, Rs 64 lakh was deposited and it was decided among governing body members that the Rs 32.5 lakh collected every month will go into the account. A letter from LIC, asking the society to settle claims from the reserve funds, was also forged.

Telgi Scandal..The size of the scam was estimated to be more than Indian Rupee 43,000 crore (US$9.55 billion)

Abdul Karim Telgi
Mastermind of the Muti-Crore Fake Stamp Paper Scam
 
THE Telgi stamp scandal is big. The Telgi stamp scandal is national. The Telgi stampscandal is all-encompassing. But, above all, the Telgi stamp scandal is Indian.Consider its many elements. First, the rags to riches story of Abdul Karim Telgi,born 47 years ago in Khananpur near Belgaum to a minor functionary in the railways. Hisfather died when Abdul Karim, the second of three sons, was still a child. He wasdetermined to study and supported his own education at a local English medium missionaryschool by selling vegetables and fruit on trains. One of his ambitions, apparently, was to goto the Gulf, which suggests an early desire to make money.Nothing wrong with that, of course. Except that our system, since the 1970s at least,encourages you to take short-cuts in the pursuit of money. And the late 1970s is when Telgicame to Mumbai from the Gulf, the legitimate ways of making money was too slow for hisliking, and he discovered the joys of forgery. From forging passport documents (which is acottage industry in India) to forging stamp paper and revenue stamps is a small leap inimagination but requires a large leap in entrepreneurship. Telgi was equal to that, and therest is (recent and dark) history, showing once again that entrepreneurship which flouts thelaw, thrives the most in our country
We are well aware how our system of checks and balances to prevent corruption, infact encourages it, and the larger the scope of a scam, the more likely it is to succeedspectacularly. Telgi's fake stamp scam is the biggest ever in the country, and it was possible
because of this simple, yet unshakeable Indian truth: everyone, or at least almost everyone iscorruptible. From the constable to the cabinet minister, everyone, or at least almost everyoneis on the take. Telgi's corruption network must be far, far larger than what it prima-facieappeared to be. The Telgi tapes, over 1,200 hours of his phone conversations secretly tapedby the Karnataka police while he was in jail, proved to be a key piece of evidence.In the meantime, let's just look at the policemen so far in the net. Telgi gave very,very large bribes, got very, very large favours. The biggest of course, was to carry onunhindered, the business of forging government Stamp Paper. The fact that this translatesinto defrauding the government of very large revenues, isn't something that bothered our keepers of the law, as long as their own demands were met. By the time Telgi came to needCompany and grow his network, he had already learnt that the right sum of money into theright pocket at the right time, ensures that an official head will look the wrong way whenwanted. That, in fact, was how his stamp paper career started: he was able to bribe insidersto give him the production programmes of the heavily guarded Government Security Pressin Nashik, so that he knew what denomination and category of papers were being printed atany given time, so his own press could do the same. Even more importantly, Telgi was ableto buy special printing machines from the Nashik press which had supposedly gone beyondtheir shelf life, and were meant to be destroyed and sold as scrap. Telgi did buy them asscrap (at an auction which was fixed in his favour), but he was able to ensure that the presseswere not destroyed as they were meant to be
   
                                                     Another reason why the Telgi scam is so very Indian is that it involves so much of official incompetence. Whether the incompetence was just that or was motivated, is for theSIT to find out 
Two more elements make the Telgi scam thoroughly Indian. The first is the veryscope of the scam. Initial figures said that the fraud totalled Rs. 2,000 crores. That alreadymassive figure has steadily been increased so that in some circles the estimate goes up to Rs.26,000 crores and in some even to Rs. 32,000 crores. Where do these staggering figurescome from? And why are these being bandied about so loosely? This suggests the usual rumour mill in action, kept in check neither by the authorities nor the media. Surely it wouldbe possible to get a better approximation by looking at annual figures of stamp papersofficially sold over the last few years, looking at the annual rate of growth and checking if there was a large fall in the sales figures in the last few years. That reduction would give areasonably accurate estimate of the market cornered by Telgi......

The Fodder Scam 1996 l Rs 950 crore

The Fodder Scam (chārā ghoṭālā) was a corruption scandal that involved the alleged embezzlement of about Indian Rupee ₹950 crore (US$210.9 million) from the government treasury of the eastern Indian state of Bihar.[1] The alleged theft spanned many years, was engaged in by many Bihar state government administrative and elected officials across multiple administrations (run by opposing political parties), and involved the fabrication of "vast herds of fictitious livestock" for which fodder, medicines and animal husbandry equipment was supposedly procured.[1][2][3] 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,[4] and as an example of the mafia raj that has penetrated several state-run economic sectors in the country. Although the scandal broke in 1996, the theft had been in progress, and increasing in size, for over two decades.

The scam

The scam was said to have its origins in small-scale embezzlement by some government employees submitting false expense reports, which grew in magnitude and drew additional elements, such as politicians and businesses, over time, until a full-fledged mafia had formed.[4]Jagannath Mishra, who served his first stint as the chief minister of Bihar in the mid-1970s, was the earliest chief minister to be accused of knowing involvement in the scam.[5]
In February 1985, the then Comptroller and Auditor General of India, T.N. Chaturvedi, took notice of delayed monthly account submissions by the Bihar state treasury and departments and wrote to the then Bihar chief minister, Chandrashekhar Singh, warning him that this could be indicative of temporary embezzlement.[6] This initiated a continuous chain of closer scrutiny and warnings by Principal Accountant Generals (PAGs) and CAGs to the Bihar government across the tenures of multiple chief ministers (cutting across party affiliations), but the warnings were ignored in a manner that was suggestive of a pattern by extremely senior political and bureaucratic officials in the Bihar government.[7] In 1992, Bidhu Bhushan Dvivedi, a police inspector with the state's anti-corruption vigilance unit submitted a report outlining the fodder scam and likely involvement at the chief ministerial level to the director general of the same vigilance unit, G. Narayan.[8][9] In alleged reprisal, Dvivedi was transferred out of the vigilance unit to a different branch of the administration, and then suspended from his position. He was later to be a witness as corruption cases relating to the scam went to trial, and reinstated by order of the Jharkhand High Court.

Indian Black Money in Swiss Bank

Top five countries having deposits in Swiss Bank Association:
India—- $1,456 billion (Public loot since 1947) Scams in India since Independence
Russia —$ 470 billion
UK ——-$390 billion
Ukraine – $100 billion
China —–$ 96 billion
According to Global Financial Integrity Indian politicians, IAS, IRS, IPS and people from entertainment and sports industry have deposited $ 325 billion in last five years in Swiss accounts. This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about other international destinations? There are presumably more than 70 Tax havens in the world. Indian wealth could be more in Switzerland and various British /US islands. At least forty countries market themselves aggressively as tax havens. India has more money in Swiss banks than all the other countries combined.
Interestingly Swiss government agreed to disclose the names of the account holders only if the respective governments formally asked for it but Indian govt. is not asking for the details. Annually more than 100,000 Indians travel to Switzerland, of whom 35,000 travel very frequently. A few corrupt Indians have 1.5 trillion dollars of black money.
India and Switzerland signed the amended Double Taxation Avoidance Treaty, which will help the government seek details about the ill-gotten money allegedly stashed away by Indians in Swiss banks. ‘Our government has to ratify the amended treaty. It is just a formality. The Indian government has informed us that the treaty has been ratified by it’.
A large number of Indians are alleged to have assets worth billions of dollars in banks in Switzerland. And the issue of Indians having secret Swiss bank accounts was a poll plank during last year’s general elections. The German government has announced that it would share information on accounts held in the tax haven with any government that wants it, for free. Intriguingly, Indian government was silent on this issue and did not approach the German government for a long time for a look into that data. Later, it wrote a cursory letter under pressure from Opposition but has not disclosed the response of the German government.
It is common knowledge that trillions of dollars of Indian money is in various tax heavens like Antigua, Switzerland, Bahamas, Liechtenstein, Isle of Man, and St Kitts, etc. In a socialistic way, all leaders, be they from business, politics, film, sports or bureaucracy, participated in creating what we may call secular wealth cutting across caste and creed. Also, good portion of the defense commissions were settled abroad. Plus some of our bureaucrats and entertainers and artists have also accumulated wealth abroad. This lobby is well-entrenched and one of the main losers in the appreciation of the rupee.
Worst part of the story is the loss of these deposits to Swiss banks themselves up on the death of some of these depositors who have not passed on the relevant account information to their progeny. These are operated using codes but most of them require passport and its number as a proof. That is the reason one finds some persons traveling to Switzerland with all expired passports. Zurich is the only European town which has Hindi slogans written on the side of its trams. Of course it is supposedly linked to Bollywood, but the India traffic to Zurich has to be seen to be believed.
It is estimated that between $500 billion and $1,400 billion is hoarded in Swiss banks and add with that the money stashed in territories like Virgin islands and Bahamas and other assorted tax havens. We need to take steps to bring it back to India. The mechanics can be worked out in terms of amnesty and Swiss bonds issued against these dollars. It can tremendously boost our foreign exchange reserves and facilitate infrastructure investment.
“No criminals” in politics is a good campaign. But can we have leaders with funds stashed abroad? The black money abroad is the Gangotri of all crimes.

More on 2G Spectrum Scam



2g Spectrum Scam 150x150 Top 10 Scams Of INDIA Part   1
New Delhi:  From the time allegations of misappropriation during the bidding for allocation of 2G spectrum surfaced, till Telecom Minister A Raja’s ouster, high drama charged both politics in Delhi and Tamil Nadu. So what exactly is the Spectrum Scam that led to all this?
WHAT IS SPECTRUM SCAM?
* 2G licenses issued to private telecom players at throwaway prices in 2008
* CAG: Spectrum scam has cost the government Rs. 1.76 lakh crore
* CAG: Rules and procedures flouted while issuing licenses
WHAT ARE THE CHARGES ON FORMER TELECOM MINISTER A RAJA?
CHEAP TELECOM LICENSES
*  Entry fee for spectrum licenses in 2008 pegged at 2001 prices
Mobile subscriber base had shot up to 350 million in 2008 from 4 million in 2001
NO PROCEDURES FOLLOWED
* Rules changed after the game had begun
* Cut-off date for applications advanced by a week
* Licenses issued on a first-come-first-served basis
* No proper auction process followed, no bids invited
* Raja ignored advice of TRAI, Law Ministry, Finance Ministry
* TRAI had recommended auctioning of spectrum at market rates
FAVOURITISM, CORPORATES ENCASH PREMIUM
* Unitech, Swan Telecom got licenses without any prior telecom experience
* Swan Telecom given license even though it did not meet eligibility criteria
* Swan got license for Rs. 1537 crore, sold 45% stake to Etisalat for Rs. 4200 crore
* Unitech Wireless got license for Rs. 1661 crore, sold 60% stake for Rs. 6200 crore
*All nine companies paid DoT only Rs. 10,772 crore for 2G licences

Are we truly a democracy? How long will we let Spectrum Raja’s continue to thrive?

With the saga of Spectrum Raja coming to a final inglorious end, it is time for catharsis & reflection. It is unbelievable that such a scandal feels like a new story, every time. The DMK and the Congress have shown defiance and have yet to accept any guilt of wrong doing. It is sad that the Congress, reportedly denying a Joint Parliamentary committee’s enquiry, have, worse still, found a precedent in the Tehelka scam, when the BJP did not convene an enquiry either.
It appears that the fundamental rules of Indian politics is to plunder, deny any knowledge and defy any accusations by slinging mud, right back. It is indeed true that the memory of the Indian public is so short that they fail to remember past one election, the atrocities of the then incumbent.
A Raja Are we truly a democracy? How long will we let Spectrum Raja’s continue to thrive?
It is laughable that Raja will share the dais with the PM & the President to unveil a stamp commemorating the 150 years of service of the Comptroller & Auditor general (CAG), who by the way led to his exposure!
The CAG estimates that Raja has caused a loss between Rs. 90,000 Crores and Rs 1.76 Lakh Crores to the Indian government. Granted, this money would have come indirectly from the Indian public and may be argued as slowing the growth of telecom. However, this could have been a significant life changer to many. A few more roads could have been laid and a few more streets lit and a few schools built. Thank you Mr. Raja, you have continued to reinforce the west’s notion of India being a third world country where corruption alone reigns supreme.
The sad state of affairs is that the saga of Spectrum Raja did not unfold over this past weekend, nor over this past month. It has taken a long time for it to unfold.
The other scams have followed a similar route – The on-going shameful CWG scam, the Reddy scam in Karnataka, the Tehelka scam, the swami scandal, the bofors scandal and one can go on. Karunanidhi who has mentored, praised & stood by Raja was likely a beneficiary and can certainly attest to prior experience in being accused of several scams, yet the tamilians keep electing him.
The choice in Tamil Nadu feels limited to Mr. Karunanidhi or Ms. Jayalalitha, who have repeatedly been elected & ousted from power by highlighting each other’s atrocities and personal profiteering. The same seems to happen all over India. In the 60+ years of Indian Independence, the Congress still leads the number of times it has been in power and has been ousted for wrongdoing multiple times as well. Rahul Gandhi, despite the promise isn’t quite on the scene here.
Who is at fault here? As the general electing public, we are!
Why do we keep electing folks such as these, whose only motive is personal profiteering. In the entire nation, there are likely but, a handful of public servants who are truly public focused. Is the idea of a democracy, as we know and follow, flawed? The imposition of a single leader from the party with the absolute majority, forces alliances of uneven ideas and then, the quest becomes more for power than to use it towards public service.
Is Indian politics truly a free for all, with survival of the fittest and the richest, the motto behind our working? or have we become so numb to corruption that we do not care? Should the west continue to think of us as the third world, where every decision can be obtained for the right price? or will we go register to vote, pick up public service and make a difference – I seem to only have questions, but am sure as hell going to register to vote!!
PS: Despite the passionate commentary, I am fully aware that Raja’s allocation can be disputed as being within some bounds. Despite, there is not a single soul amongst this 1.4 Billion Indians that will claim that Raja did not profit from his actions. I also recognize that corruption is a worldwide phenomenon. Yet, it isn’t as widespread as it is in India and I can still hope for a modern capitalistic democratic India where the rewards are truly proportional to effort and not to devious politics.

Top 10 Financial Scams in India



Financial scams have a habit of cropping up with an alarming regularity in the Indian financial system. We have reconciled to financial irregularities to such an extent that we simply do not pay heed to smaller scams that take place around us on a daily basis. I am, or rather was, a part of the financial machinery for a few years, and trust me, even the private sector is not entirely free of the machinations of unscrupulous and enterprising scamsters. The scope of the money involved multiplies manifold in the public sector, with a corresponding drop in accountability.
financial scams in india
Financial Scamsters Are Rarely Punished
Despite a plethora of scams that surround us on a daily basis, frequently scams of large proportions come to light, and manage to stun even our jaded sensibilities. Then, there is the usual round of allegations, counter-allegations, enquiries and legislation. Some of our most notable regulations and financial institutions are the results of such scams.
I have compiled a list of ten leading financial scams in India, which have affected a large population of investors, and involved huge sums of money. They managed to shake the very foundations of our financial system, and were driven by that most basest of human instincts – GREED. In most cases, it was the greed of just one individual, or a very small group of individuals, who managed to pull of such huge scandals.
1) Insurance Scam – This scam had originated and prospered in the period immediately following Independence in 1947. At that time, the insurance sector was not nationalized, and a handful of private companies ruled the roost.  These companies were more concerned with providing benefits to selected industrialists, and ignored the interests of the common man. The government responded by nationalizing the insurance sector, and the LIC was founded under an special Act passed by the Parliament. This scam laid the foundation of the nationalization culture in India.
2) Securities Scam – Harshad Mehta – This is perhaps the most well known of all financial scams – probably because it happened in a highly visible period – economic reforms had just been started in 1991. Harshad Mehta was quick to understand the weaknesses of the banking system, and exploited these weaknesses to the hilt. He managed to procure huge amounts of money using the so called “Ready Forward” deals, and used this money to purchase large amounts of shares at hugely inflated prices. He earned the sobriquet of “Big Bull” due to this penchant. Later, the banks got a clue of his shady deals, and demanded their money back. The house of cards collapsed, and the rest, as they say, is history!
3 ) CRB Scam – This scam took place in the years 1992-1996, the period immediately following the Harshad Mehta fallout. This makes the scam even all the more daring and surprising. CR Bhansali, the perpetrator of this scam, floated more than 100 companies, such as CRB Mutual Funds and CRB Capital Markets. The primary purpose of these companies was to attract huge funds from the public by promising high rates of interest. This interest was later paid form further borrowings, and so on.  In 1995, the stock market collapsed, and this proved to be the undoing of CR Bhansali. He was investigated, and later arrested. After a brief 3-month stint in jail, he has disappeared without a trace, and nobody is asking!
4) UTI Scam – The UTI scam involved the flagship US-64 scheme of UTI, which was meant to channel the funds of small investors into instruments bearing high returns. Gradually, US-64 developed a investor base of around 2 crore investors. The economic liberalization in India, coupled with the absolute opacity in the operations of UTI, led to a situation wherein the Government was forced to announce a huge bailout of about Rs 3,500-4,000 crores in an order to prevent default in payments to the investors. The consequences of such a situation are unimaginable. But the story does not end here. Later, it turned out that the UTI Chairman appointed at this time, Mr P S Subramanyam, along with a couple of executive directors, acted wrongly to selectively benefit a powerful coterie of brokers and industrialists, while at the same time, jeopardizing the interest of lakhs of small investors.
5) Home Trade – Around the year 2000, a finance portal emerged on the financial landscape, and gained quick recognition on the back of endorsements by personalities like Hrithik Roshan, Sachin Tendulkar and Shahrukh Khan. The portal, owned by Sanjay Agarwal, claimed to deal in gilts. Soon, RBI got suspicious of activities of some cooperative banks in the gilt market, and a scam was uncovered. The same old saga – brokers and bankers combining to rob people of their hard earnings – was repeated. Funds from Seaman’s Provident Fund and PPF were affected. The total scam size was reported to be around Rs 300 crores, and more than Rs 200 crores were spent on publicity costs alone.
Ketan Parekh - Global Trust Bank 
6) Securities Scam – Ketan Parekh – That our system never learns its lessons was proved by this scam. Ketan Parkekh, a qualified CA, and a stock broker, identified a number of stocks (popularly called the K-10), and took up huge positions in these. For this purpose, he used a large number of Benami accounts and smaller stock exchanges, such as the Kolkata and Ahmedabad stock exchanges. He also borrowed heavily from banks such as Global Trust Bank and Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank. Unfortunately, he was stuck in a bear cartel, and was soon pounded to pulp on the stock exchange. The extent of the scam was estimated to be around Rs 1,500 crores.
abdul karim telgi 
7) Fake Stamp Papers – This scam promised to be the mother of all scams in India, with the initial reports quoting a figure of Rs 30,000 crores as the scam size. Later, RBI clarified that this figure was “rather exaggerated”, and the “correct” figure was around Rs 200 crores. Again, this scam exposes how the India system works – Mr Abdul Karim Telgi, the scam kingpin, paid bribes to get access to the security press in Nasik, where stamp papers and currency notes are printed. He later used this knowledge to print fake stamp papers. At the height of the scam, Telgi’s network spanned 14 states, 125 banks and more than 1,000 employees.
8) DSQ Software – Though this scam was modest in terms of money involved (only Rs 600 crores!), and did not affect the general public to a great extent, yet it is notable for how it came into being. The main player in the scam was Mr Dinesh Dalmia, who was the MD of DSQ Software Ltd. This company issued around 1.3 million shares in 2001, and these shares were allotted to four companies on a preferential basis. NSDL, a stock depository, dematerialized and helped in delivering the shares. Nothing wrong in that, except that the shares were not even listed on any stock exchange! Oops!
9) IPO Scam – A number of key operators, including corporate stock brokers such as Karvy and Indiabulls, were involved in the IPO scam that spanned the years 2004 – 2005. The modus operandi was simple – the operators would open thousands of fake accounts to purchase shares in IPOs, in the hope of selling later at huge profits. A spate of IPOs issued during this period were heavily oversubscribed due to this scam, sometimes by as much as 40 times!
10) Satyam – On a cold January morning in 2009, Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services, admitted to falsification in the company accounts and various other irregularities, and sent a chill down the collective spine of the Indian financial system. Coming on the back of the global recession, this incident promised to bust the Indian outsourcing industry and the stock market, but for some deft bailout work by the government. The matter is still under investigation and litigation, and the true extent of the scam will be known in the future, perhaps. Mr Raju himself had admitted to irregularities worth around Rs 12,000 crores.
An analysis of the scams reveals a common script  – greed, corruption, unscrupulous brokers, colluding bankers, irresponsible authorities and hapless investors, who refuse to learn their lessons. But then, these are the essential ingredients of a worthy financial scam!

The Top Ten Scams in India

1) 2G Spectrum Scam

We have had a number of scams in India; but none bigger than the scam involving the process of allocating unified access service licenses. At the heart of this Rs.1.76-lakh crore worth of scam is the former Telecom minister A Raja – who according to the CAG, has evaded norms at every level as he carried out the dubious 2G license awards in 2008 at a throw-away price which were pegged at 2001 prices.

2) Commonwealth Games Scam

clip image005 Top 10 Corruption Scams in India
Another feather in the cap of Indian scandal list is Commonwealth Games loot. Yes, literally a loot! Even before the long awaited sporting bonanza could see the day of light, the grand event was soaked in the allegations of corruption. It is estimated that out of Rs. 70000 crore spent on the Games, only half the said amount was spent on Indian sportspersons.
The Central Vigilance Commission, involved in probing the alleged corruption in various Commonwealth Games-related projects, has found discrepancies in tenders – like payment to non-existent parties, will-ful delays in execution of contracts, over-inflated price and bungling in purchase of equipment through tendering – and misappropriation of funds.

3) Telgi Scam

As they say, every scam must have something unique in it to make money out of it in an unscrupulous manner- and Telgi scam had all the suspense and drama that the scandal needed to thrive and be busted.
Abdul Karim Telgi had mastered the art of forgery in printing duplicate stamp papers and sold them to banks and other institutions. The tentacles of the fake stamp and stamp paper case had penetrated 12 states and was estimated at a whooping Rs. 20000 crore plus. The Telgi clearly had a lot of support from government departments that were responsible for the production and sale of high security stamps.

4) Satyam Scam

clip image007 Top 10 Corruption Scams in India
The scam at Satyam Computer Services is something that will shatter the peace and tranquillity of Indian investors and shareholder community beyond repair. Satyam is the biggest fraud in the corporate history to the tune of Rs. 14000 crore.
The company’s disgraced former chairman Ramalinga Raju kept everyone in the dark for a decade by fudging the books of accounts for several years and inflating revenues and profit figures of Satyam. Finally, the company was taken over by the Tech Mahindra which has done wonderfully well to revive the brand Satyam.

5) Bofors Scam

The Bofors scandal is known as the hallmark of Indian corruption. The Bofors scam was a major corruption scandal in India in the 1980s; when the then 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 India’s 155 mm field howitzer.
The Swedish State Radio had broadcast a startling report about an undercover operation carried out by Bofors, Sweden’s biggest arms manufacturer, whereby $16 million were allegedly paid to members of PM Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress.
Most of all, the Bofors scam had a strong emotional appeal because it was a scam related to the defense services and India’s security interests.

6) The Fodder Scam

clip image010 Top 10 Corruption Scams in India
If you haven’t heard of Bihar’s fodder scam of 1996, you might still be able to recognize it by the name of “Chara Ghotala ,” as it is popularly known in the vernacular language.
In this corruption scandal worth Rs.900 crore, an unholy nexus was traced involved in fabrication of “vast herds of fictitious live stock ” for which fodder, medicine and animal husbandry equipment was supposedly procured.

7) The Hawala Scandal

The Hawala case to the tune of $18 million bribery scandal, which came in the open in 1996, involved payments allegedly received by country’s leading politicians through hawala brokers. From the list of those accused also included Lal Krishna Advani who was then the Leader of Opposition.
Thus, for the first time in Indian politics, it gave a feeling of open loot all around the public, involving all the major political players being accused of having accepted bribes and also alleged connections about payments being channelled to Hizbul Mujahideen militants in Kashmir.

8) IPL Scam

Well, I am running out of time and space over here. The list of scandals in India is just not ending and becoming grave by every decade. Most of us are aware about the recent scam in IPL and embezzlement with respect to bidding for various franchisees. The scandal already claimed the portfolios of two big-wigs in the form of Shashi Tharoor and former IPL chief Lalit Modi.

9,10) Harshad Mehta & Ketan Parekh Stock Market Scam

Although not corruption scams, these have affected many people. There is no way that the investor community could forget the unfortunate Rs. 4000 crore Harshad Mehta scam and over Rs. 1000 crore Ketan Parekh scam which eroded the shareholders wealth in form of big market jolt.


Now the Question is ...So, can we live a scam-free life in India for a while now?