Bollywood actor and former beauty queen Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with its probe into the 2016 Panama Papers expose in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The Papers revealed several prominent personalities in India had floated companies in tax havens abroad.
Rai has been questioned by the ED on her foreign travels since the Panama Papers show she along with her family members attended a meeting of the Board of Directors of a British Virgin Islands (BVI) company, Amic Partners Limited in Dubai in June 2005. She is also being grilled in connection with a large deposit made to a foreign bank account of her husband, Abhishek Bachchan, using the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS).
Rai is learnt to have denied any knowledge of the BVI company and told investigators that her late father, Krishna Raj Rai, handled all her financial matters.
Incidentally, key documents of Amic Partners Limited obtained as part of the Panama Papers leak include those of its Certificate of Incumbency; company Resolutions and minutes of its Board of Directors meeting which are signed by Rai and her family members. It is also revealed that the Dubai branch of the ABN AMRO Bank would be appointed as investment managers for the Rai family’s offshore entity.
Rai, who was asked to appear before the Investigating Officer in Delhi on Monday, is being questioned over FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act) allegations and not money laundering.
The ED has been actively probing the Panama Papers case since the expose came out in 2016. Over Rs 20,000 crore worth of undeclared assets have been detected by the Income Tax authorities in connection with the Panama Papers investigation.
