CALCUTTA: “Once politics gets mixed up with business, it becomes difficult to get real justice. It happened to me and it may happen again in the case of Harshad Mehta.”

The man saying this is about to tum 70, his initials too are HM. ‘Three and a half decades ago, his name had hogged headlines for months on end. His was then a household name. Like Harshad Mehta’s is today.

“Once the Government’s machinery is used against a person, whatever wrong he has done is not only wrong. Even if he has done anything right that too becomes wrong, After all, Harshad Mehta had done good service by boosting the capital markets.”

So claimed the once well-known Haridas Mundhra in an interview to The Pioneer, breaking his silence after a gap of many years, He went on to add “My common sense tells me that the so-called Harshad Mehta scandal could not have involved only one man. Many are bound to be linked. Who they are I don’t know.”

Clad in a spotless white dhoti kurta in his well-appointed residence on UN Brahmachani Street here, a fire still seemed to burn within the man who was at the epicenter of the biggest financial scandal that the country had ever witnessed.

Much of Mundhra’s present is directed not at the Government but at a financial publication which recently stated he had died in the late-70’s, “alone and forgotten, “I may be nearing the end of my life but I’m not dead, not as yet,” he said, adding that when he heard that this publication had “killed him,” he initially thought of calling a Press conference,

It was also suggested to him that he slap defamation suit against the publication. But decided against such moves. I prefer to remain out of the limelight as I’ve had more than my share of publicity in the past.” he explained.

As a matter of fact, Mundhra spends a couple of hours every day at an office in downtown Calcutta, bang opposite the police headquarters, “helping” his only son, Vijay, with his construction and trading business.

Why didn’t he speak out earlier to give his side of the story? “I don’t want to get into any controversy. I bear no rancor against anyone. Whatever happened was just on account of my bad luck it was in my fate.”

Mundhra is quite conscious about the parallels being drawn between what happened to him and the ongoing Harshad Mahta episode. In a deadpan tone, he remarked “It is obvious there are many weaknesses in the official machinery.”

Mundhra said that “there 1s nothing to stop the Government from instituting cases but what their final outcome will be is a different matter.” He should presumably know what he is talking about.

In the late-50’s and carly-00’s, various wings of the Central and three State Governments had filed over 200 criminal cases against the Mundhra group of companies. Mundhra was charged with forgery, fraud and manipulation of share prices while the Life Insurance Corporation and various banks were accused of misusing public funds to help him acquire control of companies.

At one stage, demands amounting to around Rs 60crore had been made on the Mundhra group by the Government. By today’s standards this amount could well be 10 times higher, perhaps over Rs 1,000 crore. Eventually, however, the authorities managed to recover only a piffling sum from Mundhra, running into a couple of lakhs.

The last case pending against him in the Allahabad High Court was dismissed only in December 1990, he claims. “I lost one case, only one,” Mundhra recalled. This led to his arrest in Lucknow in December 1959, following which he spent two years in various jails in Lucknow and Calcutta.

By then, of course, the scandal had taken its toll, Industrialist Finance Minister in Jawaharlal Nehru’s Cabinet T.T.Krishnamachari had to quit following weeks of persistent questioning in Parliament by Nehru’s son-in-law Feroze Gandhi.

Thousands had flocked to the public hearings conducted by Justice M.C.Chagla’s one-man inquiry commission at the Bombay University Convocation Hall.

The galaxy of luminaries who were subject to intense cross questioning (broadcast through loudspeakers) and subsequently indicted by the Chagla Commission included, besides TTK: H.M.Patel, the then Principal Secretary to the Finance Ministry; RBI Governor H.V.R.Lengar, State Bank of India Chairman P.C.Bhattacharya; LIC Chairman G.R.Karnat, other senior LIC officials, bureaucrats, the presidents of the Bombay and Calcutta Stock Exchanges and many others.

A number of these individuals resigned their posts. Thereafter Justice Chagla remarked “Democracy in our country (is) alive and well and functioning vigorously.”

Will the fallout of the rarshad Mehta scam him as dramatic as the one involving Haridas Mundhra?

Mundhra is non-committal, “I don’t want to waste my time speculating or even discussing the past. Publicly doesn’t help me, I may harm my son’s interests.” He repeatedly states that he does not want to criticize anybody.

He did not wish to comment about a show-cause notice issued by the income-tax authorities to his son in a construction case some years ago, saying the matter had been settled.

And what about his own business; interests?” I have none,” he claimed. Really? “Really. I just help my son when he needs my help.” In recent years, he has preferred to spend most of his time in Calcutta. “I haven’t gone out of the country since 1957 and this is where I will stay,” he said.

Article extracted from this publication >> June 12, 1992