Harshad Mehta’s widow unveils website, looks to clear the air

(Image: Reuters)

Jyoti Mehta, the wife of the infamous stock market bull launched a website that promises to present her late husband's side of the story, and all the controversies surrounding the Scam of 1992 that jolted India's financial markets. Involving a fraud of around Rs 4,000 crore, the ‘Securities Scam’ as it came to be known, remains one of the biggest fraud perpetrated on the Indian stock market to date.

The late Mehta was a registered and well-known broker, who authorities accused of manipulating the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) along with his partners by taking advantage of loopholes in the banking system.

Explaining the motive behind launching the website, Mehta's wife said, "Since the media, movie and web series has (sic) kept him alive, I consider it to be my duty to defend him posthumously since all the facts have emerged and already got established, discovered, proved and become unimpeachable and most of which are in the form of orders passed by Hon’ble Courts and Tribunals."

The website reiterates that the explosive news article published in April 1992 in The Times of India, which uncovered the 'scam', and was denied by both the Chairman and the General Manager of SBI. Jyoti Mehta alleges there was an attempt to bring down her husband, who was a prominent broker by then, and 'bring down the booming stock market' by creating panic.

Jyoti Mehta laments that since 1993, her family has been the biggest victims of what she calls the highest form of “tax terrorism”. The website goes on to add, "It is ironic that the allegations of criminal offences were made which does not concern the Income Tax department but the “State” used the IT department the most to foist upon us false, fabricated and patently illegal demands of about Rs30,000 crores spread over more than 2,200 proceedings.

The discretionary powers under the IT Act have been grossly abused to raise such preposterous demands assessing us by more than 100 to 300 times of our actual incomes."

Mehta said that even though her husband was “not proved guilty of allegations made against him,” he has been vilified by the media, adding that “not a penny is now owed to the banks”.

Jyoti Mehta also alleged that there was a conspiracy behind her husband’s death in a Thane jail in 2001. “He was absolutely hale and hearty and was just 47 years of age with no prior medical history of any heart ailment,” she wrote, adding that jail authorities neglected his complaint for “4 precious hours after he suffered the first heart attack at around 7 pm”.