Mehta’s wife unveils website to present late Big Bull's story

CHENNAI: After more than 20 years of late Big Bull Harshad Mehta's death, his wife Jyoti Mehta launched a website that promises to present her late husband's side of the story, and all the controversies surrounding the Scam 1992 that jolted India's financial markets and to defend her late husband who died in police custody on 30 December 2001.

Involving a fraud of around Rs 4,000 crore, the ‘Securities Scam’ as it came to be known, remains one of the biggest frauds 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.

The website goes on to claim that Harshad Mehta was made to walk for a long distance to the Thane hospital where he immediately succumbed in a wheelchair after his cardiogram confirmed a massive second heart attack.

Explaining the motive behind launching the website, Mehta's wife said, "Since the media, movie and web series has 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, 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.

In defence of her late husband, Jyoti claims on the website, "Since Harshad was vilified through trial by media and which continues even till date by referring to him as a “scamster" even though he was not proved guilty of allegations made against him and therefore I am constrained and compelled to at least posthumously defend him since the subsequent facts and events completely vindicates him of what he had stated and conclusively demolishes baseless allegations made against him by some vested interests.”