Harshad Mehta

Harshad Mehta

Harshad M Mehta was an Indian stockbroker, well known for his wealth and for having been charged with numerous financial crimes that took place in 1992. Of the 27 criminal charges brought against him, he was only convicted of one, before his death at age 47 in 2001. It was alleged that Mehta engaged in a massive stock manipulation scheme financed by worthless bank receipts, which his firm brokered in "ready forward" transactions between banks. Mehta was convicted by the Bombay High Court and Supreme Court of India[2] for his part in a financial scandal valued at ₹49.99 billion (US$780 million) which took place on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The scandal exposed the loopholes in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) transaction system and SEBI further introduced new rules to cover those loopholes. He was tried for 9 years, until he died in late 2001

By profession Mehta was Graduate in commerce. Over a period of ten years, beginning 1980, he served in positions of increasing responsibility at a series of brokerage firms. By 1990, he had risen to a position of prominence in the Indian securities industry. He established his own firm, with the financial assistance of associates, when the BSE auctioned a broker's card. It was at this time that he began trading heavily in the shares of Associated Cement Company (ACC). The price of shares in the cement company eventually rose from Rs. 200 to nearly 9000. Mehta justified trading in ACC shares by stating that the stock had been undervalued, and that the market had simply corrected when it revalued the company at a price equivalent to the cost of building a similar enterprise; the so-called "replacement cost theory".[6]

In criminal indictments later brought by the authorities, it was alleged that Mehta and his associates then undertook a much broader scheme, which resulted in manipulating the rise in the Bombay Stock Exchange. The scheme was financed by supposedly collateralised bank receipts, which were in fact uncollateralised. The bank receipts were used in short-term bank-to-bank lending, known as "ready forward" transactions, which Mehta's firm brokered. By the second half of 1991 Mehta had earned the nickname of the 'Big Bull', because he was said to have started the bull run in the stock market.

A typical ready forward deal involved two banks brought together by a broker in lieu of a commission. The broker handles neither the cash nor the securities, though that wasn't the case in the lead-up to the scam. In this settlement process, deliveries of securities and payments were made through the broker. That is, the seller handed over the securities to the broker, who passed them to the buyer, while the buyer gave the cheque to the broker, who then made the payment to the seller. In this settlement process, the buyer and the seller might not even know whom they had traded with, either being known only to the broker. This the brokers could manage primarily because by now they had become market makers and had started trading on their account. To keep up a semblance of legality, they pretended to be undertaking the transactions on behalf of a bank.

Another instrument used was the Bank receipt (BR). In a ready forward deal, securities were not moved back and forth in actuality. Instead, the borrower, i.e., the seller of securities, gave the buyer of the securities a BR. As the authors write, a BR "confirms the sale of securities. It acts as a receipt for the money received by the selling bank. Hence the name – bank receipt. It promises to deliver the securities to the buyer. It also states that in the mean time, the seller holds the securities in trust of the buyer."

Having figured out his scheme, Mehta needed banks which issued fake BRs (Not backed by any government securities). "Two small and little known banks – the Bank of Karad (BOK) and the Metropolitan Co-operative Bank (MCB) – came in handy for this purpose. These banks were willing to issue BRs as and when required, for a fee," the authors point out. Once these fake BRs were issued, they were passed on to other banks and the banks in turn gave money to Mehta, assuming that they were lending against government securities when this was not really the case. This money was used to drive up the prices of stocks in the stock market. When time came to return the money, the shares were sold for a profit and the BR was retired. The money due to the bank was returned.