SCAM 1992: THE HARSHAD MEHTA STORY - V View Reviews #50

This is a masterpiece, a gripping tale shot artfully. Surely an eye-opening watch. Irrespective of whether you understand the stock market or not you will enjoy this series. No big actors, no melodrama, no obscene, no foul language fully focused on screenplay, writing and direction that make this show an engrossing watch.

This series is adapted from the book titled The Scam: 'Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Away' written by Sucheta Dalal and Debashish Basu. Based on true events Pratik Gandhi plays the protagonist Harshad Mehta and his journey.

This series opens with Sucheta Dalal played by Shreya Dhanvantari, a journalist getting a tip from an SBI officer about 'ghotala' involving Rs500 crores. Sucheta Dalal was the first person to blow the whistle on Harshad Mehta and exposed him as the man behind India's biggest financial scam of the time. With her report, a series of investigation agencies including the CBI started probing him. It was found that the SBI has Rs 500 crore missing from its book in the form of a Subsidiary General Ledger(SGL) at the RBIs public debt office. It was the Pre-digital age in which information moves slowly and loopholes are exploited more easily. Harshad Mehta managed to manipulate the Indian Stock market by illegally obtaining money from several banks using fake bank receipts. These high profile scams involved many bank employees, brokerage firms, bureaucrats and even politicians.

Even the late prime minister Narsimha Rao and his spiritual advisor Chandraswamy( though not named in the series)were claimed to be involved. The actual clipping was shown to the audience where Harshad Mehta and his lawyer claimed to have paid Rs one crore to the Prime Minister. However, it was never proven. Except in some places, the series uses the actual names, whether individual or institution. The total securities scam of 1992 was worth Rs 4000 crore ( 20,000 crores when adjusted for inflation in today's date). After this scam, stricter laws were introduced to widen the regulatory power of SEBI. Harshad Mehta was sentenced to five years of rigorous imprisonment where he died of a heart attack in 2001. However, in this web series, his crime was hinted at but, he was always shown to be the victim of a system that is rigged for those at the top. He is never portrayed as a criminal, he is instead shown as a crooked man who used the existing loopholes in the banking system to his benefit. He started as a jobber the lowest rank with the mantra 'risk hai to isqk hai' he became the big bull of the stock market.

This series is a brilliant recreation of old glory. The production design is of high quality. Cinematography by Pratham Mehta,  the screenplay and dialogue by Sumit Purohit, Saurabh Dey, Vaibhav Vishal and Karan Vyas, editing by Sumit Purohit, and Kunal Walve is simply superb. Theme music by Achint Thakkar is too good. All the actors played their roles excellently. Especially Pratik Gandhi as Harshad Mehta's level of performance is unmatchable. Similarly, Shreya Dhanvantary as Sucheta Dalal performed with absolute conviction. The other actors too complimented them in every possible way. Hemant Kher as Harshd's brother, Anjali Barot as Jyoti, Harshad's loyal wife, K K Raina as the chairman of UTI, Nikhil Dwivedi as a smooth-talking foreign banker, Rajat Kapoor as CBI officer, Satish Kaushik as the old-style Cobra, Chirag Vohra as Harshad's employee Bhushan and others.

This saga with 10 episodes is based on the 1992 Indian Stock Market scam directed by Hansal Mehta and Jai Mehta is one of the best streaming television series on SonyLIV.

This is my 50th post, so decide to write on one of the best series I watched this year.