Harshad Mehta: What Was the 1992 Security Fraud Scam by Him?

Today, we take you on an action-packed tour of the Big Bull of India and tell you everything you need to know about Harshad Mehta's house, family, wealth, and the luxurious life he was known for.

Harshad Mehta was not just a businessman; he was the biggest stock market manipulator and a millionaire whose exciting life story was turned into a Bollywood movie and a web series. At his highest point, he was one of the wealthiest people in India and had one of the most expensive cars.

Harshad Mehta was a famous stockbroker in India because of his properties in Mumbai and how he lived. During the 1990s, he was the talk of the town, and he took the Indian stock market by storm.

Call him a skilled stock picker, a genius with flaws, or a good con man who knows how to take advantage of the holes in the system. Still, there will never be another stockbroker on the Indian stock market who has as many fans as Harshad Mehta.

Who Was Harshad Mehta

If you use social media, you must have heard about or seen Scam 1992, a popular web series in 2020. The web series was based on one of the biggest scams in Indian history. The infamous Harshad Mehta was the mastermind behind the scam.

Harshad Mehta, whose full name was Harshad Shantilal Mehta, was born in Rajkot, Gujarat, in 1954. The man lived a simple life in Gujarat. After he finished school, he moved to Mumbai. Before settling at New India Assurance Limited (NIACL) in Mumbai, he tried a few different sales jobs. He was a stock market broker who died in 2008.

He learned a lot about the stock market, and when he quit his job in the 1980s, he went to work for a brokerage firm where he met Prasann Pranivandas. With his help, he learned about the stock market and made a name for himself there.

This earned him the nicknames “Big Bull” and “Amitabh Bachchan of the Indian stock market.”Mehta was known for taking risks, and he never let threats stop him from getting rich and building his empire.

The Family of Harshad Mehta

Harshad Mehta's father is named Shantilal Mehta, and he used to be a small textile trader in the Kandivali neighborhood of Mumbai. Rasilaben Mehta is the name of his mother. Harshad Mehta is married to a woman named Jyoti Mehta.

His partner used to be his brother, Ashwin Mehta. Artur Mehta is the name of Harshad Mehta's son if you want to talk about his kids. Harshad Mehta was older than Ashwin Mehta. People also call Harshad Mehta's son, Later Mehta, the king of the lion market.

What Was the 1992 Security Fraud Scam by Harshad Mehta?

In India's stock market in 1992, Mr. Harshad Mehta took part in a scheme called “Security Fraud.” When Mehta pulled this scam, there was no fixed minimum balance needed to buy stocks, and a broker didn't need to have a Demat account to sell stocks.

In this way, the gaps and holes in the Indian stock market allowed Harshad Mehta to take advantage of them. This caused chaos and shook the whole securities system.

Harshad Mehta used fake bank receipts to steal money from many well-known banks, including the National Housing Bank, the State Bank of India (SBI), and the UCO Bank. He did this by building a scheme to sell stocks that didn't belong to him.

Mehta used more than a billion frauds to buy stocks from the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). This caused the banking system to lose between 3500 and 4000 crores, and the Indian stock market crashed hard.

Mehta almost sold his house to pay off his debts and pay back his clients, according to a Times of India reporter named Sucheta Dalal. Dalal found out about Harshad Mehta and all of his illegal activities. Harshad Mehta was sent to jail after he was accused of many crimes.

The 1992 scam was the biggest in the history of the stock market. The RBI in India made many changes there, he tried everything he could to prove his thing like this never happens again, and the RBI in India made many changes.

Harshad Mehta's Net Worth

Self-made millionaire Harshad Mehta and his brother Aswin Mehta used to run the business together. Harshad Mehta is no longer alive, but his brother is thought to have made a lot of money.

When he was alive, Harshad Mehta was said to have had a net worth of about $475 million, which is about INR 3542 crores. When he was at the top of his stockbroking career, his wealth grew significantly, but many people lost a lot of money because of the biggest scam Harshad Mehta pulled.

The House of Harshad Mehta in Mumbai

Let us tell you everything you need to know about Harshad Mehta's property, which is an eight-apartment complex in South Mumbai's Worli that the Madhuli Society owns. One of Harshad Mehta's most prized possessions was his house in Worli, Mumbai.

His fancy house had high-end features that most people could only dream of. The house had a mini theatre, a private swimming pool, a room for a playing pool, and a lot more. The property is a beautiful apartment with two floors and a sea view.

The Harshad Mehta house consisted of eight apartments that were put together to make one big house for Harshad Mehta's family. The total amount of space in these apartments was 12,600 square feet.

Harshad Mehta's mother owned one of the apartments in the building. Harshad Mehta's family was a joint family; he lived in this house with his mother, wife, son Aatur Mehta, and his brothers and their families.

Mehta's colossal fan base and fame made many people happy and want to be like him. He even let the media use his best property for photos during his best years. He also had 15–20 cars, one of which was an imported Lexus LS 400.

At the time, he was the only one in the country with a car like that. After he was jailed and died, his house was put up for auction in 2009 and sold for Rs 32.6 Crores.

Exciting Facts About Harshad Mehta

If you want to know more about Harshad Mehta after hearing about his house and scam, here are some interesting facts.

Harshad Mehta's father, Mr. Shantilal Mehta, was a traditional cloth merchant, and his mother, Mrs. Rasilaben Mehta, was a housewife.
He was born in Mumbai's Ghatkopar. Harshad Mehta went to school for the first time in Ghatkopar. Afterward, he went to the Rose Manor Garden School in Santacruz, Mumbai.
Because Harshad's father was sick, the Mehta family moved to Raipur in 1964. Harshad and his brother signed up to go to Holy Cross High School.
The Harshad Mehta scam is talked about in the book The Scam: Who Won, Who Lost, and Who Got Away and in the Sony web series Scam 1992. Harshad Mehta is also the inspiration for the movie Big Bull, which stars Abhishek Bachchan.
Harshad moved to Mumbai in 1973 to have a better future. He moved in with his Uncle and Aunt. He got into the Lala Lajpatrai College of Commerce in Worli because he was a great cricket player.
Harshad worked for New India Assurance for about two years and then went to work full-time at BSE. And in 1982, he and his brother started a small Growmore Investments business.
Harshad Mehta paid the most income tax in 1992, which was Rs 24 crore.
Harshad Mehta lived like a king. He had a 12,000-square-foot penthouse in Worli.
He had a fleet of expensive cars like Lexus Starlet and Toyota Corolla.
Between 1991 and 1992, Harshad Mehta was the only one involved in the Sensex scam. The scam caused Rs 4500 crore to be stolen.
Harshad Mehta said publicly that he paid Mr. P. V. Narasimha Rao, Prime Minister of the time, Rs 1 crore to get him out of the scandal case.
Harshad died of a heart attack on December 30, 2001. The Mehta family says this happened because the police in Thane didn't do their jobs well.
Jyoti Mehta, married to Harshad Mehta, recently started a website in his name to defend her late husband.