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.
he 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.
Last month’s wedding in the Northern Indian state of Uttarakhand hit a snag with a public interest court challenge to the Guptas and local authorities for flouting environmental rules at the venue at the foot of the Himalayas. A ruling setting restrictions on the event also reveals some details about what the judges called a “mega-event”.
It involved 150 guest 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”.
More important than the grandeur is one of the brides. Shivangi Jalan married Atul and Chetali Gupta’s 21-year-old son, Shashank Singhala. The important connections here are Shivangi’s father Vishal Jalan, her uncle Murari Lal Jalan and cousin Ankit Jalan.
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.
Murari personally provided a loan facility of AED20-million dirham (roughly R100-million). Neither Garg nor Jalan responded when asked what this loan was for.
It just so happens that Garg was at that point trying to “buy” two airplanes from the Guptas’ already-defunct Sahara in South Africa. A payment to Sahara of R20-million was intercepted by the South African Reserve Bank.
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.
The #GuptaLeaks previously revealed that it was Medanta and specifically its co-founder Sunil Sachdeva that feted South African bureaucrats in Dubai when the plan to supply the provinces with mobile clinics got underway. Reportedly, the plan was eventually to clinch contracts for the mobile clinics with all nine provinces in South Africa and to channel the super-profits to Dubai to build a spectacular “Health City”.
Around the same time the mobile clinic plan was taking off, the #GuptaLeaks show Medanta’s Sachdeva was forwarding contracts – showing the Jalans buying interests in a company called Global Health – to an intermediary who then immediately forwarded them to Tony Gupta.
Family ties. (Graphic: Susan Comrie)
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.
The contracts are dated 26 August 2015, around the time the Mediosa deal was sealed and involved a Jalan company, Agio Image, buying shares from Sachdeva directly.
In other words, Sachdeva was letting Gupta know he had sold shares to the Jalans.
The representative of Agio Image in the contract was Murari Lal Jalan. He did not respond when asked why his investment might be of interest to the Gupta family.
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.
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.
Last month’s wedding in the Northern Indian state of Uttarakhand hit a snag with a public interest court challenge to the Guptas and local authorities for flouting environmental rules at the venue at the foot of the Himalayas. A ruling setting restrictions on the event also reveals some details about what the judges called a “mega-event”.
It involved 150 guest 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”.
More important than the grandeur is one of the brides. Shivangi Jalan married Atul and Chetali Gupta’s 21-year-old son, Shashank Singhala. The important connections here are Shivangi’s father Vishal Jalan, her uncle Murari Lal Jalan and cousin Ankit Jalan.
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.
Murari personally provided a loan facility of AED20-million dirham (roughly R100-million). Neither Garg nor Jalan responded when asked what this loan was for.
It just so happens that Garg was at that point trying to “buy” two airplanes from the Guptas’ already-defunct Sahara in South Africa. A payment to Sahara of R20-million was intercepted by the South African Reserve Bank.
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.
The #GuptaLeaks previously revealed that it was Medanta and specifically its co-founder Sunil Sachdeva that feted South African bureaucrats in Dubai when the plan to supply the provinces with mobile clinics got underway. Reportedly, the plan was eventually to clinch contracts for the mobile clinics with all nine provinces in South Africa and to channel the super-profits to Dubai to build a spectacular “Health City”.
Around the same time the mobile clinic plan was taking off, the #GuptaLeaks show Medanta’s Sachdeva was forwarding contracts – showing the Jalans buying interests in a company called Global Health – to an intermediary who then immediately forwarded them to Tony Gupta.
Family ties. (Graphic: Susan Comrie)
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.
The contracts are dated 26 August 2015, around the time the Mediosa deal was sealed and involved a Jalan company, Agio Image, buying shares from Sachdeva directly.
In other words, Sachdeva was letting Gupta know he had sold shares to the Jalans.
The representative of Agio Image in the contract was Murari Lal Jalan. He did not respond when asked why his investment might be of interest to the Gupta family.
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.
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