Political scams: India
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Some political disgraces
India Today, December 29, 2008
1. The Bofors scandal, 1987-1996 : One of the biggest political scams in the country till date, involving Rs 64 crore. It was responsible for Rajiv Gandhi’s defeat in the November 1989 general elections.
2. The JMM Bribery Case, July 1993 : The democratic values of the country were put to shame when the then PM P.V. NarasimhaRao was accused of bribing members of Jharkhand MuktiMorcha to vote in his favour in the confidence motion.
3. Fodder Scam, January 1996: The scam involved millions of dollars in alleged fraudulent reimbursements from the treasury of Bihar for fodder, medicines and husbandry supplies for non-existent livestock. It forced Lalu Prasad Yadav, the then CM of the state, to resign.
4. The Arms Bribery Scandal, March 2001: India’s coalition government began to fall apart when video tapes of highly-placed officials taking bribes in arms deals were released in 2001, forcing the then BJP president BangaruLaxman to resign.
10 scandals and shame
1. Antulay trust (1981): A.R. Antulay, the then chief minister of Maharashtra, allegedly garnered Rs 30 crore from businesses dependent on state resources.
2. HDW commissions (1987): The German submarine maker was blacklisted after allegations that commissions worth Rs 420 crore had been paid in the 1987 deal in India.
3. St. Kitts forgery (1989): Documents were forged to allege that former prime minister V.P. Singh was a beneficiary of his son Ajeya Singh’s account in the First Trust Corp. at St Kitts, with a deposit of $21 million.
4. Airbus scandal (1990): Indian Airlines’s signing of the Rs 2,000-crore deal with Airbus instead of Boeing caused a furore following the crash of an A-320 airliner.
5. Securities scam (1992): Harshad Mehta manipulated banks and the stock market, pushing shares like ACC from Rs 500 to Rs 10,000. The stacked-up claims of the brokers were a staggering Rs 10,000 crore.
6. Urea scam (1996): Born out of a shortage of fertiliser in 1996, a clutch of businessmen in connivance with top officials of the National Fertiliser Limited, fleeced the government of Rs 133 crore for the import of urea, which was never delivered.
7. Telecom fraud (1996): Former minister of state for communication Sukh Ram was accused of causing a loss of Rs 1.6 crore by favouring a Hyderabad-based firm in the purchase of telecom equipment.
8. Stock market scam (2001): Pentafour bull Ketan Parekh used UTI, Calcutta Stock Exchange and his own index K-10 to swindle investors.When the scam broke out, it wiped off over Rs 1 lakh crore of investor’s market capital.
9. Stamp paper forgery (2003): Using lax regulation, unregulated trade and old machines, A.R. Telgi forged stamps to defraud exchequer of Rs 30,000 crore.
10. Oil-for-food scam (2005): Congress Minister Natwar Singh and his legislator son Jagat were indicted for procuring contracts in the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
Vyapam scam
In brief
06 Jul, 2015
More than 40 people associated with the Vyapam scam have died since 2013. Here is a TOI lowdown on the scam and related developments.
1. The Vyapam scam pertains to manipulation in the selection process for government jobs conducted by the MP Professional Examination Board.
It involves Madhya Pradesh Vyavsayik Pareeksha Mandal (Vyapam) which conducts tests for professional courses and recruitment to various posts.
Officials, businessmen and politicians are said to be involved in putting up proxy examinees on basis of which candidates were admitted and recruited.
2. Growing toll: One after the other, people variously linked with the Vyapam scam, are dying. The mystery deepens with every new death reported even as the probe agencies struggle to unravel it.
A cursory perusal shows that not only have candidates died but also dummy aspirants as also those probing the scam.
The MP government on June 25 admitted in the high court that 25 accused have died.
However, TOI's investigations put the death toll at 46.
3. The probe: Initially, the MP government had formed a special task force to probe the scam. However, The MP high court, rejecting Congress leader Digvijaya Singh's demand for a CBI probe, on November 5, 2014 formed a special investigating team (SIT) to investigate the scam.
On July 7, the Supreme Court agreed to hear petitions seeking a CBI probe into the Vyapam scam.
The SC hearing will take place on July 9.
4. Arrests: Over 2,000 people have been arrested in connection with the scam so far, including former education minister Laxmikant Sharma. The arrested people included over a hundred of politicians, several MPPEB officials, bureaucrats, middlemen, students and their parents.
5. Whistleblowers: The investigation in the scam commenced on July 7, 2013 on the basis of a report lodged on the information of an Indore-based civil rights activist, Dr Anand Rai. Forensic expert Prashant Pandey said he became a whistleblower in July last year, when he realised the special task force was relying on documents that seemed to have been tampered with. Gwalior-based social activist Ashish Chaturvedi claims to have disclosed the involvement of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's relatives and seven others in the scam. All whistleblowers claim that they fear for their lives.
6. Vyapam is an albatross for high-flying MP CM. The numerous deaths are a serious setback for MP CM Chouhan, and represent a rare vulnerability in the political armour of the earthy politician who has been on a winning spree since his installation as CM in 2005. The most famous allegation against Chouhan being the so-called dumper scam which allegedly involved his wife Sadhana Singh and her relatives.
7. MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that it was not fair to link all unnatural deaths in the state with the Vyapam scam.
44 Mysterious deaths
