ED quizzes Amarinder Singh's son in Swiss account case

CHANDIGARH: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday questioned in detail, Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh's son Raninder Singh in Jalandhar over his alleged undisclosed Swiss bank accounts and ownership of a UK-based trust and its four subsidiaries.

The ED has registered a case against Raninder under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) following a complaint by the income tax (I-T) department which claims that he lied under oath to the department about payments deposited to trust by him in British Virgin Islands (BVI), a territory operated by the UK government.

The I-T challan, submitted on March 19, has said that Raninder is a settler (donor) of Jacaranda Trust and beneficiary of its four subsidiary companies -- Mulwala Holdings Limited, Limerlock International Limited, Chillingham Holdings Limited and Allworth Venture Holdings Limited -- with assets worth Rs 460 crore.


The I-T sleuths have also told a Ludhiana court that Amarinder is a "discretionary beneficiary" of the Jacaranda Trust.

Amarinder, who is also being investigated by the I-T, has called the entire controversy a case of vendetta, while alleging Union finance minister Arun Jaitley behind the move to avenge his 2014 defeat in the Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar.

Raninder had failed to appear before the ED twice, first seeking exemption on health grounds and then for his engagements with the Olympic team.

I-T department's chargesheet, accessed by TOI, shows that Amarinder's wife Preneet Kaur and son Raninder were asked by I-T officials to fill up a consent form on December 10, 2011, for obtaining information about their alleged HSBC accounts in Switzerland and Dubai. At that time, Kaur was a minister of state for external affairs in UPA-2.

The chargesheet also reveals that the original investigation had started after the government had received a letter from the French foreign office through a USB drive under the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement between India and France.