Aishwarya Rai Bachchan grilled by ED for six hours in Panama Papers case

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan on Monday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in New Delhi in connection with the Panama Papers case.

The 48-year-old actress was questioned by the agency for six hours under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). She has also submitted some documents to the agency.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, the daughter-in-law of megastar Amitabh Bachchan, had sought adjournments on two occasions earlier.

The ED has been probing the Panama Papers 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 documents were submitted by the Bachchans to the agency then.

Abhishek Bachchan has also been examined by the ED in the past in another instance linked to the offshore leaks case, sources said.

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, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) to monitor probe into the Panama Papers and similar global tax leaks cases.