The North News
Chandigarh, February 12
The Enforcement Directorate has summoned former Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh and his son Raninder Singh for questioning in connection with a Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) violation case, officials said on Wednesday.
The father-son duo have been accused of being the “beneficiaries” of certain foreign assets, including a Swiss bank account.
Amarinder Singh, a BJP leader, has been asked by the federal probe agency to appear at its Jalandhar office on Thursday while his son has been asked to depose the next day, the officials said.
Sources, however, said Amarinder Singh may not depose on February 12 as he recently got admitted to a private hospital in Mohali.
The ED may give him a fresh date to appear and record his statement under FEMA.
The move is related to a September 2025 order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
The high court had then dismissed petitions filed by the father-son duo seeking to stop the ED from inspecting an Income Tax Department chargesheet against them for allegedly being the beneficiaries of certain foreign assets, including a Swiss bank account.
The matter stems from “credible” information and “master sheets” received by India from the French government in 2011 alleging the Singhs to be the “beneficiaries” of foreign assets “maintained and controlled” through foreign business entities including a Swiss bank account and an asset in Dubai, held through a trust.
The I-T Department filed a prosecution complaint (chargesheet) against the two before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ludhiana in 2016 under section 277 (prosecution for making false statements or producing false accounts/documents) apart from some sections of the IPC.
The ED subsequently moved an application before the magistrate court for inspection of documents filed by the tax department, or, in the alternative, seeking directions to the complainant (I-T Department) to provide a copy of those documents as it was probing the said case under the FEMA.
The magistrate court allowed the ED plea but it was challenged by the Singhs before the court of additional district judge of Ludhiana. The additional district court upheld the magistrate court order.
The Singhs then filed an appeal against this order before the high court stating the I-T records contain “secret” information given by the French Republic to the Government of India and there was a “specific bar” on providing any such information to a stranger under the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement between the two countries.
The high court upheld the order of the additional district judge saying it was “well-reasoned” and did not suffer from any infirmity or error of law.
