Panama Papers case: Aishwarya Rai leaves ED office after 5 hrs of questioning

Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was questioned for over five hours on Monday by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office in Delhi in a case linked to the 2016 'Panama Papers' global tax leaks case, according to India Today sources.

The ED summoned Aishwarya Rai, 48, over allegations of violations of forex rules.

The probe agency recorded Aishwarya Rai’s statement in Delhi. She is facing allegations of stashing wealth abroad in violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), the sources told India Today.

Dubbed 'Panama Papers', an investigation of a stockpile of records from Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in 2016 had named several world leaders and celebrities who allegedly stashed away money abroad in offshore companies. Some of them are stated to be holding valid overseas accounts.

The leaked tranche had a total of 426 India-linked cases. The ED has been probing the case linked to the Bachchan's since 2016-17.

It had issued notices to the Bachchan family asking them to explain their foreign remittances since 2004 under the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) and regulated under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

The government had created a multi-agency group (MAG) of central investigative agencies under the chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) that also comprised officials from the ED, RBI and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) to monitor probe into the Panama Papers and similar global tax leaks cases.

It had recently said that ''total undisclosed credits of Rs 20,353 crore'' have been detected with respect to 930 India linked entities in the Panama and Paradise Paper Leaks, as on October 1, 2021.

With inputs from agencies