Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story is an Indian Hindi-language financial thriller web series directed by Hansal Mehta and co-directed by Jai Mehta. It premiered on SonyLIV on 9 October 2020. The series dramatises the rise and fall of stockbroker Harshad Mehta, whose manipulation of the Indian banking system led to the securities scam of 1992. It is based on the book The Scam: Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Away by journalists Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu.
| Title | Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story |
|---|---|
| Genre | Biographical financial thriller |
| Director | Hansal Mehta |
| Co-director | Jai Mehta |
| Based on | The Scam by Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu |
| Writers | Sumit Purohit, Saurav Dey, Vaibhav Vishal, Karan Vyas |
| Producer | Studio Next (Sony Pictures Networks India) |
| Language | Hindi |
| Number of episodes | 10 |
| Original release | 9 October 2020 |
| Streaming platform | SonyLIV |
| Music | Achint Thakkar |
The series chronicles the period from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, when Harshad Shantilal Mehta, a Bombay-based stockbroker, exploited loopholes in the Indian banking system to channel funds from inter-bank transactions into the stock market. The resulting bull run inflated share prices on the Bombay Stock Exchange before the scam was uncovered, primarily through the investigative reporting of Sucheta Dalal in The Times of India in April 1992.
Hansal Mehta, known for biographical and socially driven cinema such as Shahid and Aligarh, took up the project as his first long-format streaming series. Development involved extensive consultation with Dalal and Basu, who served as consultants to maintain accuracy in the depiction of banking instruments, ready-forward deals, and the Bank Receipt mechanism that lay at the heart of the scam.
The ten-episode arc follows Harshad Mehta's journey from a small-time jobber on Dalal Street to becoming the most influential broker on the Bombay Stock Exchange, dubbed the "Big Bull." Parallel tracks follow Sucheta Dalal's investigation into irregularities in inter-bank securities transactions and the subsequent unravelling of the scam, which implicated several public sector banks, foreign banks, and senior officials.
Major plot points include Mehta's dealings with the State Bank of India, the National Housing Bank, and Citibank; his courtroom appearances; allegations against political figures; and the eventual investigations by the Reserve Bank of India, the Central Bureau of Investigation, and the Janakiraman Committee.
Filming took place primarily in Mumbai, with the production design recreating the trading floor of the Bombay Stock Exchange of the early 1990s, period costumes, vintage automobiles, and the décor of Mehta's Worli sea-facing apartment. The title track, composed by Achint Thakkar, became widely recognised and is frequently sampled in popular culture.
The series received critical acclaim for its writing, direction, period detail, and Pratik Gandhi's central performance. It was widely regarded as one of the finest Indian web series of its time and brought Pratik Gandhi to mainstream recognition. On IMDb, it consistently ranked among the highest-rated Indian television series. The show is credited with reviving popular interest in the 1992 securities scam and in financial journalism of the period.
Scam 1992 is considered a landmark in Indian streaming content for its long-form treatment of a real-world financial crime. It contributed to a wave of fact-based dramas on Indian OTT platforms and renewed public engagement with regulatory reforms that followed the 1992 scam, including the strengthening of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the introduction of the depository system.
A follow-up titled Scam 2003: The Telgi Story, based on the stamp paper scam orchestrated by Abdul Karim Telgi, premiered on SonyLIV in 2023. It was developed under Hansal Mehta's showrunner banner, with Tushar Hiranandani directing.