If you want to know where you get the world's best bisi bele bhaat - a rice and lentil preparation - you should log on to Maheshwer Peri's Facebook page. The former president and publisher of the Outlook group of journals is not shy about airing his views. When he has something to say, on issues that range from road rage to taxes, he does so freely and frankly - and frequently.

On one issue, though, he was strangely reticent. He had won what was perhaps the greatest battle of his life. But he didn't make it public for almost two months.

"I didn't want the spotlight on me, or a larger-than-life projection. In fact, I wanted to contain myself," he says, sitting in his office in Delhi's Shahpur Jat area, known for its fashion stores and restaurants.

Peri's long and bruising battle with Arindam Chaudhuri, the founder of the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), started in 2009 and ended on January 22, 2016. The end came in the form of a nine-line, 85-word order by the Supreme Court of India. Chaudhuri had informed the court that he wanted to "withdraw the proceedings" against the company owned by Peri. The court agreed, and victory was Peri's.

Finally, on March 19, he posted a message on Facebook to state that IIPM had withdrawn all cases against him.

Peri, 47, is the chairman and founder of Career360, a monthly magazine and an online platform that offers technology-driven educational products and services. He employs around 200 employees.

He looks relaxed in a light purple shirt and jeans with sneakers. Every time he tries to straighten the ends of his curly, salt and pepper hair by rubbing a lock with the palm of his hand, it curls right back like a snail. His curls are unlike the man himself - who, clearly, is difficult to bend.

It may be gratifying to see a powerful man with deep pockets concede defeat. Peri, however, says he is not bitter at the end of it all, despite all the problems he faced over the years.

"Financially, I had to spend in high eight figures. Personally, it did affect me. I will not lie. There were days when I couldn't sleep, days when I didn't have an idea how we would sustain the company, days when my wife and I discussed the shape our life was taking. But every time I met a young person cheated by IIPM, I felt that this was a battle I had to fight," he says.

The battle with IIPM started with an article in Careers360 headlined "IIPM - Best only in claims" in June of 2009. It was followed by another article in July 2009, headlined "IIPM Makes Yet Another Claim - Over to you Mr. Sibal". The reference was to a statement made by IIPM that its MBA/BBA course was recognised by the University of Buckingham, UK. The university denied that it had any arrangement with IIPM.

Peri had then just left Outlook to start his own publishing house, Pathfinder Publishing India Pvt. Ltd, with Careers360 being its flagship. Chaudhuri had some experience in suing journalists and would file cases in different courts across the country. In Peri's case, a Rs 100-crore defamation case was filed in Kamrup in Assam, apart from a host of other cases elsewhere.

Chaudhuri was then riding high. His IIPM sponsored full-page advertisements in newspapers and magazines. IIPM made colossal claims - about its courses, the validity of its degrees and so on - but not many ventured to probe them. Peri, however, decided to ask him questions about the inaccuracies that he saw in the ads.

While the court cases carried on, regulators were also snapping at the heels of IIPM. The All India Council for Technical Education had maintained for long that IIPM was not authorised to award degrees. In May 2014, the University Grants Commission issued a circular, warning students and parents that IIPM was not recognised and that it could not award degrees. Later that year, the Delhi High Court said IIPM was "misleading" its students and asked it not to offer business courses or advertise as a management and business school.

In July 2015, IIPM announced that it would shut down all its campuses in India.

The court case, however, didn't ease the plight of thousands of students who had joined the many campuses of IIPM.

"In the five years after we started the battle, 12,000-15,000 students enrolled in IIPM courses had to go through the pain," he says. "I may have won the battle but, during this, thousands of students lost out. That's not a nice feeling," he says.

The judicial system, he believes, gave a long rope to IIPM.

But it was the judiciary that gave his confidence a boost at a very early stage. The Uttarakhand High Court on October 8, 2010, quashed all criminal complaints filed by IIPM against Careers360.

"I knew that this house of cards would come crashing down if I kept up the fight," he says. He would score more victories in the Punjab and Haryana High Court and Delhi High Court against IIPM.

Peri never met Chaudhuri, though he was in touch with him through text messages. "There was communication between us. It wasn't that he was an enemy. But I was clear that there would be no settlement outside the court," he says.

The IIPM head tried to approach him "a thousand times", he says. "It is like Pakistan promising us that there will be no terrorism in Kashmir. Just give us Kashmir. Is that a compromise? There was no question of a settlement as there was nothing wrong on my side. In most cases, if there is a compromise, it means both sides are wrong in some way or the other. In my case, we had done nothing wrong," he says.

At the end of it, he says that he has "neither love nor hate" for Chaudhuri. His focus now is on his company's portal and students from across India. He borrows a line from Robert Frost. "I have loads of work to do before I sleep," he says.

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House of cards

The man with the ponytail and grin has been keeping a low profile. But Arindam Chaudhuri tells Sonia Sarkar that he plans to open a private university Arindam Chaudhuri is not in a mood to talk about himself. “There is an incredible conspiracy by people to pull me down,” he says.

His empire, certainly, is not what it used to be. The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), Chaudhuri’s much advertised institute for management studies, once comprised 1,500 students spread over 18 campuses across the country. It now has one campus, and 150 students. Chaudhuri, however, is hopeful about what he calls IIPM 2.0. “We send our faculty members to different institutes in different cities for teaching. We receive a partnership fee in exchange,” he says.

The man who wears a ponytail and a grin maintains a low profile these days. He lives in a sprawling house in Delhi’s Bengali enclave, Chittaranjan Park, and moves around in his dark blue Bentley. He agrees that his image has been “dented” in recent times.

“But IIPM doesn’t define my existence. I don’t earn my bread and butter from IIPM. IIPM is my passion,” he says.
He has just lost a case to publisher Maheshwer Peri, who describes Chaudhuri’s empire as a “house of cards”.

Chaudhuri will not speak about Peri. He, however, opens up, after some coaxing, about his business plans and ventures. Besides IIPM, Chaudhuri runs an IT company, Contentra Technologies, an HR consulting firm, Planman HR, film production company Planman Motion Pictures and magazine publisher and television production company, Planman Media. And he has plans to start a private university.

He edits a weekly called The Sunday Indian, which was re-launched on March 18. When it was first issued — during the UPA rule in 2006 — it had Rahul Gandhi on the cover. The new edition, launched by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders — focused on Narendra Modi. “He has fabulous leadership qualities. I hate religion per se but I supported Modi openly,” Chaudhuri says.