Actor Shah Rukh Khan won’t appear in front of the ED in connection with a FEMA case for alleged loss of Rs 73.6 crore foreign exchange linked to the IPL T-20 cricket league on Wednesday as he and his wife has asked for an extension of date for their appearance and the central probe agency has agreed to.
The agency will soon issue a new date, they added. Khan, his wife Gauri and few others had been issued a notice by the ED last month to be present before the adjudicating authority of the case here on August 23.
The authority, in this case, is a special director-rank officer of the agency.
The accused are issued notices by the authority so that they can participate in the legal hearing and subsequent final decision of the case which, if proven guilty, can lead to up to three times of the penalty on the actual amount of loss.
The notice had been issued against few others involved in the case, being probed under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
The case pertains to the show cause notice where the agency had issued notices to Khan, his wife, actor-friend Juhi Chawla and Knight Riders Sports Private Limited (KRSPL), which owns the Indian Premier League (IPL) team of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
The show cause notice had been issued for the sale of some shares of KRSPL to a Mauritius-based firm at a cost lower than their "actual value", resulting in an alleged loss of foreign exchange to the extent of Rs 73.6 crore.
The agency had stated that the notice has been issued for "contravention of provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management (Transfer or Issue of Security by a Person Resident Outside India) Regulations, 2000 made under the Foreign Exchange Management Act".
While Gauri is a director of KRSPL, Khan and Chawla are the owners of the IPL team KKR.
The case pertains to 2008-09 when the ED first began investigation against the IPL franchise and its owners. Khan and others have been questioned by the ED multiple times in this case and the actor's statement was also recorded under FEMA provisions.
A show cause notice under FEMA laws is issued when the investigation of the case gets completed and following this the adjudication process begins.
On the professional front, SRK was last seen in Imtiaz Ali’s Jab Harry Met Sejal opposite Anushka Sharma. The movie didn’t perform well at the box office.
(With PTI Inputs)
