Jaipur hotel owner files criminal defamation complaint against Royal Orchid Hotels chairman Chander K Baljee

New Delhi: Rupesh Tambi, managing director of KsheerSagar Developers and a hotel partner for the Royal Orchid Hotel in Jaipur has filed a criminal defamation complaint before the magistrate court in Rajasthan concerning a statement given by Royal Orchid Hotels chairman and managing director Chander K Baljee that he was planning to sell his stake in the hotel.
"He has done this to defame us at the local level. We have no plans of selling the hotel," Tambi said.

Mohit Khandelwal, his legal counsel said it is a criminal defamation complaint filed against Baljee in the magistrate court. “It is in reference to a statement given by him to The Economic Times,” he added.

In an interview to ET in its edition dated July 21, Baljee had said the company is looking for buyers for its land parcels in Powai and in Tanzania and that the chain's hotel partner in Jaipur wants to sell his stake in the property. “Our partner wants to sell his share in the Jaipur hotel. We are not looking at selling our stake,” he had said. Royal Orchid Hotels has a 50% ownership stake in the concerned property.

“When we talk of partners we have other hotels in Jaipur and we have not made any specific reference to Mr Tambi,” Baljee said in a response to ET’s queries on the complaint. “We have got four hotels in Jaipur,” he added.

Royal Orchid runs over 60 hotels across 38 locations in India across categories and has hotels in locations like Bengaluru, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Goa, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Kolkata. It reported consolidated revenues of Rs 203.83 crore in financial year 2018-19.

Baljee had told ET in the interview that the company planned to build a hotel in Powai but got into the asset light mode and dropped the plan of constructing one.

“We are actively looking at selling our land and are in touch with buyers. We are looking at buyers for the parcel in Tanzania as well,” he had said.