Chapter 3 INFAMOUS CORPORATE FRAUDS in INDIA and ABROAD
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Chapter 3 INFAMOUS CORPORATE FRAUDS IN INDIA AND ABROAD SYNOPSIS 1. Infamous Corporate Frauds in India 63 1.1 The Harshad Mehta Case (1992) 64 1.2 The C R Bhansali Case (1992-96) 66 1.3 The Virendra Rastogi Case (1995-96) 67 1.4 The Cobbler Case (1995) 68 1.5 The JVG Case (1997) 69 1.6 The Anubhav Plantation Case (1998) 72 1.7 The Abdul Karim Telgi Case (2000) 73 1.8 The UTI Case (2000) 75 1.9 The Dinesh Dalmia Case (2001) 76 1.10 The Ketan Parekh Case (2001) 77 1.11 The Sanjay Agarwal Home Trade Case (2001) 79 1.12 The IPO Demat Case (2005) 80 1.13 The Satyam Case (2009) 81 1.14 The Saradha Group-Chit Fund Case (2013) 84 1.15 The National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) Case (2013) 87 1.16 The Bank of Baroda Case (2015) 92 1.17 The PACL Case (2015) 93 2. Infamous Corporate Frauds Abroad 94 2.1 The Enron Case (1985) 94 2.2 The World Com Case (2002) 96 2.3 The Tyco Case (2005) 96 2.4 The Ponzi Scheme (Fort Lauderdale) Case (2009) 96 2.5 The Mark Todd Case (2002-2005) 97 2.6 The President of California Agribusiness Case (1999-2002) 98 2.7 The Maximum Dynamics Case (2000-2005) 98 2.8 The Corporate Funding Financial of America Case (2001) 99 2.9 The Edward Ehee Case (2001-2006) 100 2.10 The Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. Case (2009) 100 2.11 The Marian Gardens Tree Farm Case (2007) 101 2.12 The Quality Trucking Case (2000-2002) 101 2.13 The Philadelphia Academy Charter School Case (2009) 101 2.14 The Rajat Gupta Case (2012) 102 3. Features of Corporate Frauds in India 109 3.1 Fraud Perpetrators 109 3.2 Common types of Frauds 109 3.3 Lack of Action against Perpetrators 109 60 Corporate Frauds & their Regulation in India Chap. 3 3.4 Accountability 109 3.5 Unsufficient authorities 110 60 3.6 Insufficient Powers with fraud regulating agencies 110 3.7 Approach of the Adjudicating Agencies 110 3.8 Time Taken in Disposal of Cases 110 3.9 Weak anti-fraud measures 110 4. Summary 110 This chapter briefly describes the cases of corporate frauds which attracted public FraudsCorporate & attention through mass media because of the huge amount involved and the larger stakes of the public. Corporate frauds have shown an unprecedented increase in India in recent years and have posed serious questions before managers, regulators and professionals, on the effectiveness of corporate governance mechanism, regulatory mechanism, and the role of corporate and individual ethics. With the advancement of th commerce and technology, India, like many other countries, has been in the grip eir Regulation in India of corporate frauds. The enormous increase in corporate frauds in India in recent decades owes its origin to fast-developing economy and industrial growth. In the Western countries, particularly the UK and the USA, numerous studies in the finance, economics and law literature have been conducted with a view to ascertain incentives and monitoring deterrents of corporate frauds, and to identify the loopholes in the government control systems. However, in India, this important area of business appears to have escaped the attention of research scholars. No doctoral research work was available on the subject in the Social Science Documentation Centre of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSR). The author has been awarded a doctoral degree on Corporate Frauds in Chap. 3 India- Nature, Consequences and Regulation. Fortunately, a periodical comprehensive survey had been conducted by a reputed consultancy firm KPMG. Moreover, an interesting and in-depth account of white-collar crimes is given by Girish Mishra and Braj Kumar Pandey1. Probably the first major corporate scam in Independent India was what is referred to as the Mundhra scam. Hari Das Mundhra, an industrialist and stock speculator, sold fictitious shares to the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and thereby defrauded the corporation by `1.25 crore in 1957. He was found guilty and was sentenced to imprisonment for 22 years. The then Union Finance Minister, T.T. Krishnamachary had to resign from his prestigious post in the face of scathing criticism within and outside Parliament. After the Haridas Mundra case of 1957, another major scam in the mid-sixties and early-seventies was associated with Jayanti Dharma Teja. He availed loans 1 Girish Mishra and Braj Kumar Pandey (1998), White-Collar Crimes: Current Affairs, Crime, Education, Literature, Media, Politics, Religion, Sociology (Delhi: Gyan Publishing House) Chap. 3 Infamous Corporate Frauds in India and Abroad 61 from banks and financial institutions and used this easy money to establish a shipping empire, in the name of Jayanti Shipping Company Limited. While he Chap. 3 had set up this company with a paid-up capital of a mere `200/- and took government loans amounting to `22 crore, Teja evaded government taxes and committed frauds by various ways. First, he, in collusion with his second wife, produced a forged resolution of the board of directors of the company authorising him to be the sole beneficiary of a letter of credit for $ 1,200,000. Secondly, by Infamous Corporate Frauds in India and Abroad using forged documents and making false statements, he withdrew $ 1,36,800 from his wife’s personal account. Thirdly, he misappropriated $ 87,600, paid by the Norwegian company for the charter of a ship. Lastly, he fraudulently retained a two percent commission on the amount paid by his company to Mitsubishi International Company, for building 11 vessels for the company. Teja was charged with offences under Sections 409 and 467 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which are punishable with imprisonment for life, together with offences under Sections 420, 477A, and 120B of the IPC for the embezzlement of about two crores of rupees in foreign exchange out of the funds belonging to Jayanti Shipping Company of which he was a permanent Chairman. The infamous corporate frauds reported since 1992 can be divided into three categories: (1) Corporate Scams, (2) Individual Scams and (3) Political and Government Scams. These are listed in Tables 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 respectively: Table 3.1 Infamous Corporate Scams in India S. Year Name of the Scam Amount Involved No. (` Crore) Approx. 61 1. 1992 Harshad Mehta Securities scam 5,000 2. 1995 Preferential Allotment scam 5,000 3. 1995 Cobbler scam 2,880 4. 1995 Preferential Allotment scam 5,000 5. 1996 Virender Rastogi scam 43 6. 1996 CR Bhansali scam 1,200 7. 1997 JVG scam 1,000 8. 2001 Dinesh Dalmia Stock scam 595 9. 2001 Ketan Parekh Securities scam 1,250 10. 2005 IPO-Demat scam 146 62 Corporate Frauds & their Regulation in India Chap. 3 S. Year Name of the Scam Amount Involved 62 No. (` Crore) Approx. 11. 2009 Satyam scam 10,000 12. 2013 Saradha scam 4,000 13. 2013 Reebok Shoes Company scam 8,700 Corporate FraudsCorporate & 14. 2013 National Spot Exchange Limited 5,600 scam 15. 2015 Bank of Baroda scam 6,172 16. 2015 PACL scam 47,000 th Table 3.2 eir Regulation in India Infamous Individuals Scam S. Year Name of the Scam Amount Involved No. (` Crore) 1. 1994 Sugar Import scam 650 2. 2000 Telgi Stamp Paper scam 172 3. 2001 Sanjay Agarwal Home Trade scam 600 4. 2008 Pune Billionaire Hassan Ali Khan tax 50,000 default sacm Chap. 3 5. 2008 Illegal Money in Swiss Banks scam 71,00,000 6. 2011 Hasan Ali Khan scam 50,000 Table 3.3 Infamous Political/Government Scams S. Year Name of the Scam Amount Involved No. (` Crore) 1. 1995 Meghalaya Forest scam 300 2. 1996 Fertiliser Import scam 1,300 3. 1996 Urea scam 133 4. 1996 Bihar Government Fodder scam 950 Chap. 3 Infamous Corporate Frauds in India and Abroad 63 S. Year Name of the Scam Amount Involved Chap. 3 No. (` Crore) 5. 1997 Sukh Ram Telecom scam 1,500 6. 1997 SNC Lavalin Power Project scam 374 7. 1997 Bihar Land scandal 400 Infamous Corporate Frauds in India and Abroad 8. 1998 Teak Plantation scam 8,000 9. 2000 Unit Trust of India scam 4,800 10. 2005 Bihar Flood Relief scam 17 11. 2005 Scorpene Submarine scam 18,978 12. 2006 Punjab’s City Centre Project scam 1,500 13. 2006 Taj Corridor scam 175 14. 2008 Army Ration Pilferage scam 5,000 15. 2008 State Bank of Saurashtra scam 95 16. 2009 Jharkhand Medical Equipments scam 130 17. 2009 Rice Export scam 2,500 18. 2009 Orissa Mine scam 7,000 19. 2009 Madhu Koda Mining scam 4,000 20. 2010 2-G Spectrum scam 60,000 21. 2010 Adarsh Housing Society scam 8.5 63 22. 2010 Common Wealth Games scam 70,000 23. 2010 UP Food Grains scam 2,00,000 24. 2010 ISRO-Devas S Band scam 800 25. 2010 IPL Cricket scam 5,500 26. 2014 Wyapam scam ---- 1. Infamous Corporate Frauds in India The major cases of corporate frauds occurred as shown in Table 3.4, which were reported during the period from 1992 to 2015 briefly described below, so as to bring out their features and modus operandi. 64 Corporate Frauds & their Regulation in India Chap. 3 Table 3.4 64 Major Scams of Corporate Sector S. Year Name of the Scam Amount Involved No. (` Crore) 1. 1992 Harshad Mehta scam 4,000 Corporate FraudsCorporate & 2. 1992-96 C R Bhansali scam 12,000 3. 1995 Cobbler scam 2,880 4.