Yesterday afternoon, homegrown streaming giant SonyLIV sprung a surprise on its followers by announcing the release date of one of its most awaited shows. It was the third anniversary of the revamped version of SonyLIV, and what better way to celebrate than to reveal the date of premiere of a hugely anticipated SonyLIV original – Scam 2003: The Telgi Story.
So ‘Scam 2003: The Telgi Story’ will premiere on SonyLIV on 2nd September, a whole three years after its blockbuster hit predecessor, ‘Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story’.
However, one thing that is quite surprising about Scam 2003 is that we have a release date for the show, but we still don’t have any faces. The only actor revealed from the cast lineup of Scam 2003 is Gagan Dev Riar, as the primary protagonist in the show, the late scamster, Abdul Karim Telgi. Telgi was the perpetrator of the massive ₹20,000 Crore Stamp Paper Scam of the late nineties and early noughties.
Neither SonyLIV, the makers of Scam 2003 Applause Entertainment, nor showrunner Hansal Mehta has revealed any names from the cast of the upcoming show. SonyLIV has tagged main lead Gagan Dev Riar, showrunner Hansal Mehta, director Tushar Hiranandani, producers Applause Entertainment and Studio NEXT, and writer Kiran Yadnyopavit in its social media posts. There’s no mention of any other actor from the cast of Scam 2003.
What’s with the suspense, anyway? With a little over two months to go before Scam 2003 hits SonyLIV, wouldn’t it be a good thing to have revealed the rest of the cast of Scam 2003. Scam 1992 became a hit not only because of main lead Pratik Gandhi, but also because of the excellent support cast, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Hemant Kher, Rajat Kapoor, Chirag Vohra, Sharib Hashmi, among others.
Why not announce the rest of the cast members of Scam 2003? It’ll only help to amp up excitement for the upcoming show, in our opinion. After all, the most important update viewers have been desperately waiting for is about the cast of Scam 2003 – other than its release date, of course. Now that that cat is out, how about letting the other one out of the bag as well?
For the unversed, ‘Scam 2003: The Telgi Story’ will tell the story of the infamous counterfeit stamp paper scam of the 1990s – 2000s, said to be a ₹20,000 crores scam. Abdul Karim Telgi was the mastermind of that scam. SonyLIV’s show Scam 2003 is adapted from the Hindi non-fiction book “Reporter Ki Diary”, authored by journalist Sanjay Singh, credited with busting the scam. Singh and Marathi writer Kiran Yadnyopavit are the scriptwriters for Scam 2003. Hansal Mehta, director of Scam 1992, returns for the series, but as showrunner this time. Scam 2003 is being directed by Tushar Hiranandani, who’s earlier directed ‘Saand Ki Aankh’.