The advantage of being on planet earth for a long time is..you can be a part historian. This may be perhaps a little parochial towards the South Indians who got caught in the scam…

The first scam that comes to mind is the Harshad Mehta scam..1992. (I was not born at the Mundhra scandal which cost TTK* his job)…so for me it was Harshad.

Ashwin and Harshad were very, very sharp individuals and I remember Ashwin had a fantastic library about PSU companies. Not sure how many brokers had such detailed info about PSUs – circa 1990-91. Obviously they had rubbed some of the ‘old money’ people in Mumbai – and Harshad was brought to his knees. Not sure who should get the credit for doing the story but the JPC was a sham. They did not know what to ask, and the CBI team was not really equipped to really handle this.

Many Tam brams / others (do not wish to name them) who did not know the difference between a debenture and a share were treated so badly by their parent organisations that I wish nobody works for such indifferent and punishing employers. One honest and sincere employee (who had all his life time savings in bank FDs in the same bank) HAD NO MONEY AT ALL – his FD, his PF, salary…everything was FROZEN. Luckily his son had completed his education and relatives stood by him.

I recently met a few of them…they have been reduced to skeletons. Some poetic justice that their kids have done well and helping their Dads.

No cases stuck, people were blamed for signing without checking.

The guys who really benefited by the scam had the money to pay for the lawyers, these guys did not.

If all this is known to people working in these banks, I would be surprised to see ANYBODY willing to take a equity related decision. I know one kid who has not been able to open a demat a/c seeing what happened to her dad.

A book on what happened to these people will be nice to do…..I lack the resources. And there are millions of people wishing to take credit for ‘breaking’ the scam. Sad, but true.

* Changed from Krishna Menon based on the first comment, thanks.