Telangana says it had no material on Tollywood Drugs case to provide to ED
Hyderabad: The Telangana State excise and prohibition department and the special investigation team (SIT) constituted in 2017 to investigate Tollywood’s drugs-related cases have filed an affidavit before the high court on Thursday, saying they have no material or evidence to supply to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) other than copies and charge sheets related to the cases.
“We detected 12 cases of possession, transport and sale of drugs in 2017 and cases were registered. In all these, investigation has been completed and charge sheets filed before the trial court. All related material collected in the investigation including the digital evidence and the statements of the involved persons had been submitted to the court. Now, there is no more material to deliver to the ED,” the director of prohibition and excise informed the high court.
The affidavit was submitted in response to a HC order to the SIT to share the material available with it to the ED.
In 2017, then MLA and now Congress MP Revanth Reddy had filed a PIL, seeking direction to the state government to entrust the investigation to the Narcotics Control Bureau, ED, CBI and other central agencies, and not to the SIT of the state excise department. He had contended that the state has no power to investigate the case.
Meanwhile, ED filed an interim application, urging the court to direct the Telangana government and SIT to render all necessary assistance to it by way of sharing all certified copies of the documents, statements taken by the involved persons and digital evidences seized during the investigation, so as to initiate proceedings under the provisions the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Since 2020, the high court has repeatedly directed the Telangana state to provide the documents it had. The court had also cautioned the state excise department that if it did not handover the material, then it would direct the SIT to produce the documents before the HC.
In this context, Sarfaraz Ahmad, director of state excise and prohibition department, filed the affidavit stating that the agencies did not have any additional material to handover to the ED.
