The Mundhra Scandal 1957

Mundhra Scandal (1957)

TT Krishnamachari and Jawaharlal Nehru

It was the media that first hinted there might be a scam involving the sale of shares to LIC.

Feroz Gandhi sourced the confidential correspondence between the then Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari and his principal finance secretary, and raised a question in Parliament on the sale of 'fraudulent' shares to LIC by a Calcutta-based Marwari businessman named Haridas Mundhra.

The then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, set up a one-man commission headed by Justice MC Chagla to investigate the matter when it became evident that there was a prima facie case. Chagla concluded that Mundhra had sold fictitious shares to LIC, thereby defrauding the insurance behemoth to the tune of Rs. 1.25 crore.

Mundhra was sentenced to 22 years in prison. The scam also forced the resignation of T.T.Krishnamachari.

The irregularity was highlighted in 1958 by Feroze Gandhi of the Indian National Congress party, who represented the Rae Bareli seat in the Parliament of India. Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister at the time, and Feroze was married to his daughter Indira Gandhi. Nehru, as the leader of the ruling Congress party, wished to have the LIC matter handled quietly since it might show the government in a poor light.

However, Feroze Gandhi was the primary force behind an anti-corruption movement that in 1956 resulted in imprisonment of one of India's wealthiest men, Ram Kishan Dalmia, for defrauding his life insurance company. Subsequently, the parliament had passed the Life Insurance of India Act on June 19, 1956, under which 245 firms were nationalized and consolidated under the Life Insurance Corporation. Hence, he looked upon the LIC as a "child of Parliament". He would have no softpedalling on the matter, and took the case directly to parliament:

"Parliament must exercise vigilance and control over the biggest and most powerful financial institution it has created, the Life Insurance Corporation of India, whose misapplication of public funds we shall scrutinise today." Feroze Gandhi, Speech in Parliament, 1957-12-16.

However, the matter was dramatized further in the public mind by the tense relations between Feroze and his father-in-law.