The treadmill of business frauds: From 1957 LIC scandal to PNB scam

Satyam offered the first inkling of the chronic governance problems in Indian companies, when a board stuffed with signature international personality patently failed to do its due diligence

Every country has its share of business frauds but India’s are unique in that they have almost consistently involved the failure of the financial system and/or regulatory loopholes that businessmen have exploited. That has been the case from the Rs 12.6 million Haridas Mundhra-Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) scandal of 1957, billed as independent India’s first corruption scandal, to the Rs 4 billion Harshad Mehta-State Bank of India (SBI) scam of 1992, the first scandal post economic liberalisation, to the Rs 127 billion Nirav Modi-Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam of 2018.
 
Up until Harshad Mehta’s Big Bull era, it was