The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan for questioning in a case linked to the 2016 'Panama Papers' global tax leaks case, officials said on Monday, December 20. Aishwarya Bachchan, 48, the daughter-in-law of superstar Amitabh Bachchan, has been asked to depose before the agency in Delhi.
A top ED official confirmed that she was summoned to join the probe by Monday. "We summoned her for December 20. As of now we haven't got any reply from her side. The summon was sent to her Mumbai residence," an ED official told IANS. If she doesn't join the probe, the ED will think of further legal action. They might seek legal opinion from the experts to decide the future course of action, added the official.
The ED has been probing the case since 2016 when the global leaks came to light. It later 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). Some other instances of alleged irregularities linked to the family are also under the scanner of the federal probe agency, the officials said.
Dubbed 'Panama Papers', an investigation of a stockpile of records from Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists had named several world leaders and celebrities who had allegedly stashed away money abroad in offshore companies. Some of them are stated to be holding valid overseas accounts.
It isn't the first time that the actor has been summoned in the case. She was summoned earlier on two occasions. However, she didn't join the probe. Earlier on November 9, Aishwarya was summoned to record her testimony in the case.
With PTI, IANS inputs