What a tangled web we weave: Another Gupta wedding brings shadowy in-laws into the fold

The Gupta family last month held yet another wedding extravaganza, this time double nuptials reportedly costing in the region of R500-million. This is small change compared to a supposed $500-million (R7.1-billion) price tag on the Guptas’ and their new in-laws’ latest business venture: an improbable university complex in Uzbekistan.

The wedding cements ties with the Jalan family of India with whom the Guptas have already embarked on at least one healthcare venture, which is associated with a mobile health clinics scandal locally.

Since December, members of the Gupta and Jalan families have registered at least three companies in short succession before now joining two of their offspring in wedlock.

It involved 150 guests and 150 workers, 30 tents, helicopters and hotel rooms. The local government even handed a closed state-owned hotel over for the event. According to the ruling, it was really the authorities at fault for granting permission. An interdict to scrap the wedding would cause “irreparable damage to the families involved”.

Especially Murari and Ankit are cropping up in recent Gupta deals in India, Dubai and, most recently, Uzbekistan.

This was not the only time that large amounts of money flowed from the Jalans to persons or entities in the Gupta fold. Records show that Gupta in-law Aakash Garg (of Sun City wedding fame) was also counting on Murari Lal Jalan to send money to his 100%-owned company in Dubai, Agev Investments, in February 2018.

The Jalan and Gupta families have business ties at least as far back as 2015 related to the Jalans’ investment in the Indian private hospital group Medanta. This is the company behind the mobile clinic scandal in the North West and Free State.

Global Health was essentially Medanta’s outsourced provider of services and the two companies later merged. The merger was already anticipated in the contracts sent to Tony Gupta, making them essentially an investment in Medanta.

In other words, Sachdeva was letting Gupta know he had sold shares to the Jalans.

The ties between the Guptas and Jalans seem to be getting more direct and to be picking up steam.

The businesses of the Jalans largely involve building grand “parks” or “hubs” for various industries. Murari Lal Jalan owns Orion I.t. Parks, which encompasses a small empire of property developments in India which, according to company records, seem to all be personally funded by Murari though a set of subsidiary companies.

Now the Jalans have joined forces with the Guptas in a plan to build an entire new university town in the Uzbek capital city Tashkent which seemingly again involves Medanta.

World of Knowledge

In January 2019, Gupta in-law Garg punted a grandiose plan to the Uzbek government: In return for “at least” 100ha of land, he and a partner would build the “World of Knowledge” from scratch.

Garg’s 50% partner in the new venture is Murari Lal Jalan, uncle of last month’s bride and Garg’s benefactor early last year.

The outlay would be a staggering $500-million (R7.3-billion) spread over either seven or 15 years (as the various pitch documents to the government differ). The plan seems far-fetched, not least because Tashkent already houses several higher education institutions including the University of Uzbekistan.

The plan seems to have come together in a rush.

This escalation from the education minister to the prime minister and city governor suggests the proposal may have been met with favour.

The Jalan signing-off on the proposal alongside Garg is, however, not Murari, but cousin-of-the-bride Ankit Jalan who heads up many Jalan companies.

These proposal letters contain a phone number and an address that provide further clues as to who is behind the mega-venture.

The phone number belongs to Vishal Jalan in Dubai. He is the father of the bride, and the uncle of Ankit. He did not respond to detailed questions.

The address, however, belongs to a private hospital in Tashkent called Orion Medicity. This hospital is a venture of the Medanta group while also bearing the “Orion” brand name used by the Jalans. Medanta director and co-founder Sachdeva also failed to reply to questions.

The university town proposal seems like a very grand version of the Jalan projects in India where they appear to have made plans for a number of enormous parks, usually for the IT or financial services industries. A massive “Techcity” was also planned for Mauritius at some point.

There is little evidence of these parks materialising though, casting doubt on the huge Uzbek venture’s prospects as anything other than a way to move money into the country. Indian company records show that dedicated Orion companies set up to build the parks have in a number of instances done little but receive intercompany loans to buy land that remains undeveloped.

Neither Murari Lal Jalan nor Ankit Jalan responded when asked if any of their parks have ever materialised or whether the Uzbek proposal was getting off the ground.

As the Uzbek university plan goes through the paces, other Jalan-Gupta enterprises are being set up.

On 10 December 2018 a company called Patanjali International was registered in India. Shashank Singhala, the Gupta son that married the Jalan daughter last month, owns 49.4% while Ankit Jalan owns 33% and Achla Gupta (the mother of Vega Gupta, who married Aakash Garg at Sun City) owns 17%.

Then, on 15 January 2019 Patanjali India Distribution got registered. Anil Gupta, Achla’s husband, owns 99.4%. Singhala, Murari Lal Jalan and others own nominal shares.

Murari and Ankit Jalan, Aakash Garg as well as Achla and Anil Gupta failed to answer questions about these companies.

The name Patanjali refers to a 10th-century Indian sage, but also to a group of Indian companies in the consumer goods industry. These include Patanjali Ayurved and Patanjali Biscuits.

It is not clear if these Patanjali companies are related to the new Patanjali companies in which the Guptas have shares. The new companies’ names, however, suggest that they are in fact meant to distribute something as was envisaged in the earlier deals.