Murdered liquor baron Ponty Chadha was a Tejpal investor

The Think festival, organised every year by Tarun Tejpal’s company Thinkworks and the setting for the sexual assault allegations Tejpal now faces, was not the only intellectual talk-shop the former editor of Tehelka championed. Before being murdered last year, liquor baron Ponty Chadha agreed to invest a large sum of money in Tejpal’s latest venture, an exclusive “private club” for “select urban Indians”.

A few months back, several prospective members of the club received invitations by email from Tejpal, promising celebrity chef-cooked meals, fine drinks, eminent personalities from across the world and a select group of “scrupulously monitored” members .

The email invitesaid the club, to be called PRUFROCK, will be “that unique urban phenomenon out of which the high culture and social engagement of legendary cities is born: a space where the life of the mind and senses meet. A contemporary, edgy, live space that evokes both leisure and substance. A space to eat, drink, think. A place full of possibilities. Conversations. Engagements. Illuminations. And, of course always, high aesthetics and pleasure”. Over 100 engagements every year involving high profile speakers and networking opportunities were among the promises.

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A report in The Indian Expresssays Wave Industries, Ponty Chadha’s flagship company, decided to invest in Prufrock in early 2012 after Tejpal made a business presentation to them. Chadha was later killed in a shootout in his farmhouse in Delhi in November 2012.

[caption id=“attachment_125263” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Tarun Tejpal. AFP[/caption]

According to the report, Prufrock is owned by Thriving Arts Pvt Ltd, set up in June this year with 72 per cent shares owned by Tejpal and 28 per cent by his sister Neena Tejpal.

“On August 26, Chadha Hotel’s Pvt Ltd invested Rs 2 crore for 11,111 shares issued at Rs 1,800 per share,” the report said.

Chadha’s Wave Industries is also one of the 34 sponsors of the Think fest.

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The club itself is under construction, in GK-II’s M-Block market in South Delhi, a three-floor space whose interiors are being constructed.

Amid the allegations of private business interests fronted by intellectual pretension and snobbery, further allegations against Tejpal have also begun to surface.

A report in the Daily Mailhas said the Tejpals bent rules while renovating a 200-year-old mansion in North Goa’s Moira village. The villa, Birdsong, broke the mandatory 3- metre ‘setback’ area, said activists, among other allegations.

The Mail Today also reported on other properties allegedly owned by the Tejpals, including a resort in Nainital’s outskirts.

Despite Tejpal’s business deals, Tehelka magazine itself could be headed for serious trouble with the Trinamool COngress’s Rajya Sabha MP KD Singh indicating that he wants to take his investment out – a substantial 60-odd percentage.

Already not in the best financial health, Tehelka could now face difficulties in raising funds to sustain operations even for a few months, said a report in The Times of India.

Anant Media, which publishes the magazine, made losses of over Rs 10 crore during 2011-12, the report says. Between 2011 and March 2012, the stake of Royal Building and Infrastructure Private Limited (owned by KD Singh) grew from 30 percent to 65.75 percent.

“Royal Building and Infrastructure had also given an unsecured advance of Rs 19.6 crore for operations to be sustained,” the report says. “Anant Media had also taken on a few bank loans against securities, running into a few lakh rupees together as well as an overdraft.”