ED grills Indrani Mukerjea in money laundering case

Mumbai, Nov 24 (IANS) A team of Enforcement Directorate on Friday interrogated Indrani Mukerjea, inside the Byculla women's jail, in connection with a money laundering case lodged against her, official sources said.

A Special CBI court -- conducting the trial in the sensational Sheena Bora murder case, in which Indrani, her husband Peter Mukerjea and former husband Sanjeev Khanna are the prime accused -- on Thursday granted permission to the ED to question her for two days.

The interrogation by the ED pertains to a case it had registered in May this year under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against several persons, including the Mukerjea couple, their company INX Media, former Union Minister P. Chidambaram's son Karti Chidambaram and others.

Charging them of financial misappropriation, the ED had contended that the Mukerjeas had "allegedly siphoned off 90 million pounds and the money is suspected to have gone to foreign countries through the unauthorized route of hawala".

Following the Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance, the INX Media had received Foreign Direct Investment for Rs 46.20 million, but it actually received FDI of Rs 3,053.60 million between August 2007 and May 2008, the ED had said.

Accordingly, this excess foreign exchange equivalent to Rs 3,004.40 million, beyond the disclosed the permitted foreign investment, was received by INX Media from three Mauritius-based investors, according to the ED.

While Rabin, Peter's son from a previous marriage, was managing the funds in the form of bonds in New Zealand, the trio of Peter, Indrani and Rabin laundered money and were involved in transactions in Britain linked with illegal funds generated from India, said the ED.

The next round of ED interrogation will be conducted on December 6, as per the court orders.