Arms dealer Ravi Rishi, who is involved in the Tatra truck bribery scandal is said to have spent around $5 million on his daughter’s wedding to the son of Chender Baljee—CMD of Royal Orchid Hotels

Sucheta Dalal

Businessmen, who knew little about Ravi Rishi, the extremely low-profile but fabulously wealthy defence dealer arrested in connection with the Tatra trucks bribery scandal, are now recollecting other connections to the group. A source tells us about an incredibly lavish wedding in Jaipur around five years ago, whose cost people were toting up to an incredible $5 million. All the palace hotels in the city were booked for the wedding with ceremonies planned in different hotels over a number of days. It was the kind of money that Ravi Rishi spent on his daughter’s wedding to the son of Chender Baljee—chairman and managing Director of Royal Orchid Hotels. The company which went public in 2006 with an offer at Rs165 is now trading at around Rs42.80. At that time, it was all prepped up to get the best price with WestBridge Capital and Jerry Rao, then a director and chairman of MphasiS Software, as investors. Mr Rao was also a director, who quit the board soon after Royal Orchid raised over Rs112 crore from the market. He was probably following in the footsteps of another corporate icon, NR Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys, who had joined the NDTV board just before its IPO, although he was too busy to attend even a single board meeting in the first year—even if it meant flouting the good governance rules set by a committee that he had headed. He quit the board after a couple of years.