Harshad Mehta Biography 
Harshad Mehta was an Indian stockbroker who gained nation-wide attention following a scam in Bombay Stock Exchange in 1993. The scam made big headlines in newspapers and television channels. The scandal exposed the loopholes in the Bombay Stock Exchange transaction system, which caught curiosity nationwide and later SEBI had to re-enforce new rules to cover those loopholes in the system. A wealthy man, he has been charged with numerous financial crimes of the year 1992 and later convicted by the Bombay High Court and Supreme Court of India for the financial scandals valued 49.99 billion Indian rupees at BSE. He was convicted in only 4 cases, though 27 were charged against him and was tried for 9 years, until he died in late 2001 in his late 40s. He earned the nickname of the 'Big Bull' as he was the first one to start the Bull Run in the stock market.
He was born on 29 July 1954 in Paneli Moti of Rajkot district, Gujarat. His early childhood was spent at Kandivali, Mumbai where his father owned a business. Later his family moved to Raipur, Chhattisgarh. Harshad started off his career as a broker in the early 1980s. He rose to prominence in the early 1990s and became a rich man. By that time he established his own brokerage firm as well. As a broker he invested money on shares of Associated Cement Company (ACC), and following the heavy buying of the stock, its price shoot up to nearly 9000, from just 200 rupees per share. He justified his trade suggesting that the stock has been undervalued and it will give more returns once the prices are revalued.
He is alleged to have engineered the rise in the BSE stock exchange in 1992, resulting in a Bull Run for the first time in Indian Stock market. He exploited several loopholes in the banking system as well as stock exchange and took advantages of the banking system to orchestrate the 4000 crore scam diverting funds from banks to brokers between April 1991 and 1992. Government bond market was used to play stocks. It triggered a shoot up of prices in Stock exchange and once the scam got exposed, banks started demanding their money back, causing the collapse. Later he was charged with 72 criminal offenses and got arrested. Mehta died in 2002 with many litigations still pending against him. A Special Court also sentenced Sudhir Mehta, Harshad Mehta’s brother, and six others associated with the scam.
Published: N/A
Updated: January 18, 2016
