Panama Papers case: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan gets mobbed outside ED office; she left after six hours of grilling

Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was grilled for nearly six hours by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in New Delhi on Monday. The actress was questioned by the ED in regard to the Panama Papers global tax leak case that surfaced in the year 2016.

The questioning of Bollywood’s megastar Amitabh Bachchan and Samajwadi Party’s Member of Parliament Jaya Bachchan’s daughter-in-law, Aishwarya, came weeks after her husband, actor Abhishek Bachchan was quizzed by the ED in another case, officers said.

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The agency has issued notices to the Bachchan family asking them to clarify their foreign transfers since the year 2004 under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Some documents have already been submitted by the Bachchan family to the ED. At the same time, the federal probe agency also has some other occurrences of alleged irregularities linked to the family under its scanner.  

Aishwarya’s father-in-law and Bollywood’s megastar, Amitabh Bachchan, has been made the director of at least four companies of which three are in the Bahamas and one in the Virgin Islands. These companies are said to be made in the year 1993. As per media reports, the capital of these four companies is said to be anything between USD 5,000 to 50,000.

As per the media reports, the senior Bachchan was reportedly accused of merging the four shell companies in May 2005. The companies were said to be incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan were made directors of separate firms. Later Aishwarya was made a shareholder of a company.

Aishwarya’s brother and parents were also reportedly made partners in the same company which was made in the year 2005 and was later dissolved after three years in the year 2008.

The Panama Paper leaks case had names of roughly 500 Indians that including the names of Amitabh, Aishwarya, Vijay Mallaya, Harish Salve and Ajay Devgn. The list also included the name of Iqbal Mirchi, one of the most wanted underworld dons.