Explainer: What are Panama papers? Why ED has summoned Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan?

According to the sources, the Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate in Delhi to enquire about her investment abroad.

This is the third time that the Enforcement Directorate has asked for the appearance of the actress. On earlier two occasions, she sought more time and didn’t appear.

ED, which is the economic intelligence organisation that tracks and investigate financial crime and bunging, will question the actress about the legality of sending money from India to other countries and investing there so that they don’t need to pay tax on their earnings in India.

The daughter-in-law of the Man of the Millennium and Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan is not the only celebrity who is under the scanner for alleged financial bungling. Many big industrialists, businessmen, actors and celebrities from various other walks of life are under scanner for stashing away their wealth in off-shore account to avoid paying any tax in India.

The matter was exposed in 2016 when for the first time a huge number of classified documents were stolen and leaked to the media. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists accessed these papers and launched a thorough and intense investigation. It was found that celebrities including top politicians and some of the heads of state of countries have opened accounts or are office-bearers in the shell companies abroad.

Only in India, there are over 300 people who have allegedly opened such accounts and they are under the lens of the financial watchdog which carrying out a thorough investigation.