ED probing Bharti Airtel in money laundering cases: Finmin

Telecom major Bharti Airtel is being probed for money laundering by the Enforcement Directorate, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Shares of the company fell over 2 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) following Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam's announcement in Parliament.



"Directorate of Enforcement is investigating cases under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, and Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, involving M/s Bharti Airtel Ltd," he said in a written reply.

Shares of Bharti Airtel were trading at Rs 301.7, down 2.03 per cent from Monday's close at 2.00 pm on BSE. The scrip saw similar fate on the National Stock Exchange too, trading 2.16 per cent down at the same time at Rs 300.80.

Palanimanickam, however, did not provide additional information, saying: "It may not be in the interest of the ongoing investigations to provide any further details."

Bharti Airtel is the country's largest private telecom company, which offers mobile phone services under 'Airtel'. It has operations in several other countries, including Africa.

With inputs from PTI