This is the season of scams and the biggest ever corruption cases in India have been unearthed more

recently. So, we decided to dig deep to see which scams were the biggest and most damaging to the country and its citizens alike. In our daily life, most of us must have been a witness to or a victim of the corruption thriving in some or the other part of the country. It could be in the form of a taxi-driver manipulating the meter to jack-up the reading or a government officer taking bribery to promptly transfer your file to the next department or even yourself offering bribe to a traffic police on breaking a signal.

An average Indian citizen is hard working and diligent, but it is the people in charge of the system (The Babus) or with whom the power lays, that act as a cancer spreading the venom, slowing down progress and what all not. But, somewhere down the line, we ourselves are responsible for allowing and being taken for a ride by these people, arent we? However, it is during a multi-thousand crore scam, that a tax-payer actually realizes the heartburn of being cheated from his valued contribution of funds towards the development and well-being of the nation. But, thats what a scam, be it big or small, means the act of swindling by some fraudulent scheme or action.

The Top Scams in India

1) 2G Spectrum Scam

Another feather in the cap of Indian scandal list is Commonwealth Games loot. Yes, literally a loot! Even before the long awaited sporting bonanza could see the day of light, the grand event was soaked in the allegations of corruption. It is estimated that out of Rs. 70000 crore spent on the Games, only half the said amount was spent on Indian sportspersons. The Central Vigilance Commission, involved in probing the alleged corruption in various Commonwealth Games-related projects, has found discrepancies in tenders like payment to non-existent parties, willful delays in execution of contracts, overinflated price andbungling in purchase of equipment through tendering and misappropriation of funds. 3) Telgi Scam: As they say, every scam must have something unique in it to make money out of it in an unscrupulous manner- and Telgi scam had all the suspense and drama that the scandal needed to thrive and be busted. Abdul Karim Telgi had mastered the art of forgery in printing duplicate stamp papers and sold them to banks and other institutions. The tentacles of the fake stamp and stamp paper case had penetrated 12 states and was estimated at a whooping Rs. 20000 crore plus. The Telgi clearly had a lot of support from government departments that were responsible for the production and sale of high security stamps.

We have had a number of scams in India; but none bigger than the scam involving the process of allocating unified access service licenses. At the heart of this Rs.1.76-lakh crore worth of scam is the former Telecom minister A Raja who according to the CAG, has evaded norms at every level as he carried out the dubious 2G license awards in 2008 at a throw-away price which were pegged at 2001 prices. 2) Commonwealth Games Scam

4) Satyam Scam

If you havent heard of Bihars fodder scam of 1996, you might still be able to recognize it by the name of Chara Ghotala , as it is popularly known in the vernacular language. In this corruption scandal worth Rs.900 crore, an unholy nexus was traced involved in fabrication of vast herds of fictitious livestock for which fodder, medicine and animal husbandry equipment was supposedly procured. 6) The Hawala Scandal

The scam at Satyam Computer Services is something that will shatter the peace and tranquillity of Indian investors and shareholder community beyond repair. Satyam is the biggest fraud in the
corporate history to the tune of Rs. 14000 crore.

The companys disgraced former chairman Ramalinga Raju kept everyone in the dark for a decade by fudging the books of accounts for several years and inflating revenues and profit figures of Satyam. Finally, the company was taken over by the Tech Mahindra which has done wonderfully well to revive the brand Satyam. 5) The Fodder Scam

The Hawala case to the tune of $18 million bribery scandal, which came in the open in 1996, involved payments allegedly received by countrys leading politicians through hawala brokers. From the list of those accused also included Lal Krishna Advani who was then the Leader of Opposition. Thus, for the first time in Indian politics, it gave a feeling of open loot all around the public, involving all the major political players being accused of having accepted bribes and also alleged connections about payments being channelled to Hizbul Mujahideen militants in Kashmir. 7) IPL Scam

Never before has a scam been enjoyed and celebrated by such a massive proportion of

Indian people. A lot of the IPL activity has been alleged to be unethical, unlawful and sometimes illegal. Politicians and others are said to be laundering black money via Mauritius and other tax havens which hide investors identities through shell companies and false names. There are suggestions that matches and bids for team franchises have been fixed, and that there have been bribes, tax evasion, illegal betting, and breaches of foreign investment rules. At the centre of the growth, and the controversy, was Lalit Modi, creator and chairman of the IPL and former vice president of the highly politicised Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

The Bofors scandal is one of the biggest scam that cripple India. The Bofors scam was a major corruption scandal in India in the 1980s and grough a major setback Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party. The then PM Rajiv Gandhi and several others including a powerful NRI family named the Hindujas, were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India's 155 mm field howitzer. It has been speculated that the scale of the scandal was to the tune of 400 million. The case came to light during Vishwanath Pratap Singh's tenure as defense minister. The name of the middleman associated with the scandal was Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who represented the petrochemicals firm Snamprogetti. Quattrocchi was reportedly close to the family of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and emerged as a powerful broker in the 1980s between big businesses and the Indian government
9. Harshad Mehta & Ketan Parekh Stock Market Scam

Well, I am running out of time and space over here. The list of scandals in India is just not ending and becoming grave by every decade. Most of us are aware about the recent scam in IPL and embezzlement with respect to bidding for various franchisees. The scandal already claimed the portfolios of two big-wigs in the form of Shashi Tharoor and former IPL chief Lalit Modi. 8. Bofors Scam

Harshad Mehta & Ketan Parekh Stock Market Scam came as ashocker for many.It was

basically a fraud done in the capital market with the investors by manipulating the facts in order to attain enormous profits There is no way that the investor community could forget the unfortunate scam and over 4000 crore Harshad Mehta 1000 crore Ketan Parekh

scam which eroded the shareholders wealth in form of big market. Harshad Mehta went to become one of the successful broker in India. The scam involved huge diversion of funds and intra tading. He triggered a rise in the Bombay stock exchange in the year 1992 by trading in shares at a premium aross many segments. Taking advantage of the loopholes in the banking system, Harshal and his associates triggered a securities scam diverting funds into 400 crores from the banks to stockbrokers between 1991 to may 1992.