ED grills Aishwarya Rai Bachchan for six hours in Panama Papers leak case; agitated Jaya Bachchan 'curses' BJP in Rajya Sabha

Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday in the Panama Papers leak case.

The actress appeared before the agency at its office in New Delhi in the afternoon and was questioned for over six hours, according to a report in PTI.

Rai Bachchan returned to Mumbai from Delhi on Tuesday.

The 48-year-old, who is daughter-in-law of Amitabh Bachchan and Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan, was the second member of the Bachchan family to be grilled by the agency in a month.

Weeks ago, Rai Bachchan's husband Abhishek Bachchan was also questioned by the ED in another case emerging from the same set of papers linked to the offshore financial leaks case.

During the questioning, details of his financial transactions were submitted by him. On Monday, the ED recorded Rai Bachchan's statement under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

The actress left the agency's office shortly after 7 PM on December 20. According to reports, the former Miss World has submitted some documents to the investigators with regard to the case.

Meanwhile, the Bollywood star's mother-in-law, Jaya Bachchan lashed out at the ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) in Rajya Sabha on Monday after a member made a personal comment against her.

The Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan bashed the BJP and also the chair with a curse, saying that their bad days will come.

Bachchan was participating in the debate on NDPS (Amendment) Bill when she got upset over a remark made by a member.

"I expect you to take action on the comment he made on me and my career. You want to be fair. You are sitting on the chair, you don't belong to any party, sir," Bachchan said.

"How can they make personal remarks in the House...Aap logon kay buraey din aayengay (Your bad days will come), I curse you," she said.

Panama Papers, an investigation of financial records from Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in 2016 named several world leaders, corporate people and celebrities who allegedly stashed away money abroad in offshore companies.

The leak exposed financial details of over 214,488 offshore entities and had a total of 426 India-linked cases.

The ED has been probing the case linked to the Bachchans since 2016-17 and had earlier issued notices to the family, asking them to explain their foreign remittances since 2004 under the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) and regulated under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

Some documents were submitted by the Bachchans to the agency then.

According to PTI, Rai Bachchan was stated by the ICIJ of having links with an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) that was created in 2005.

This was not the first time that the actress was summoned in the case by the ED. The agency has summoned Rai Bachchan earlier on two occasions. However, she sought time to appear before the ED and didn't join the probe at that time.