Chandigarh, Feb 13 (IANS) Two days after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned former Punjab Chief Minister and BJP leader Capt Amarinder Singh and his son, Raninder Singh, in a 2016 Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) case, the officer heading the federal agency office in Jalandhar has been transferred. A Union Ministry of Finance order reads, "Additional Director Ravi Tiwari, a 2009-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, who had been posted to Jalandhar in September 2023, has now been shifted to Chennai."

Another IRS officer, Dinesh Pachauri, has been appointed to the Jalandhar post. Capt Amarinder Singh and his son have been accused of being the beneficiaries of certain foreign assets, including a Swiss bank account. While Capt Amarinder Singh was asked to appear at the Enforcement Directorate’s Jalandhar office on Friday, his son was to appear on Thursday. The latter had sought an exemption from the summons, citing the health of his father, who underwent a knee replacement surgery at a Mohali hospital.

A member of the BJP’s national executive body, Capt Amarinder Singh had also requested an adjournment on medical grounds. State acting BJP President Ashwani Sharma met Capt Amarinder Singh in hospital on Friday to enquire about his well-being. Raninder Singh was summoned by the ED on October 23, 2020, too, at its Jalandhar office to explain the alleged movement of funds to Switzerland and creation of a trust in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands.

The Income Tax Department had filed a charge sheet against the father-son duo in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Ludhiana in 2016. It accused Raninder Singh of being the beneficiary of foreign assets maintained and controlled through foreign business entities. The I-T Department had also alleged that he was the beneficiary of foreign bank accounts maintained with the HSBC Private Bank (SUISSE) SA, Geneva, Switzerland.

It had said that Raninder Singh misguided the agency by claiming that he did not have documents related to his family's income and trusts abroad. The documents revealed that Raninder Singh was a 'settler' of Jacaranda Trust, formed in July 2005 in the British Virgin Islands between him and HSBC Trust Company Limited, acting as a trustee. The father-son duo had filed an appeal against the Ludhiana court order before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, stating that the income tax 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. In September 2025, 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.

--IANS