Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday and recorded his statement in connection with the valuation of shares of his co-owned IPL cricket team, Kolkata Knight Riders. According to sources, the actor was grilled for 3 hours by the ED officials.
ED has slapped a notice summoning Shah Rukh in October, the second summon in six months.
The ED is investigating whether the shares of the team were allegedly undervalued as it could be violative of the provisions of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
Earlier, the ED had served a notice to the team in May this year but Shah Rukh had not appeared before the agency.
Prior to that, Shah Rukh was quizzed in 2011 for allegations that KKR had received illegal money transferred from certain foreign tax havens.
The company Knight Riders Sports Pvt Ltd, which runs the KKR team, is jointly owned by Shah Rukh, actress Juhi Chawla and her husband Jay Mehta.
It is alleged that five million shares of KRSPL were sold to Mehta’s company, Sea Islands Investments Ltd, based in Mauritius in 2008 and were reportedly undervalued.
Shah Rukh is away on a film shooting assignment and sought time to appear before the investigating agency which has not set any time-frame on the issue.
In 2011, Shah Rukh was directed to provide relevant documents including the purchase of players, revenues, advertising details and the team’s shareholding pattern.
(with agency inputs)