Hyderabad: Govt told to hand over case documents to ED

Hyderabad: The High Court Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili on Wednesday heard the interim application filed by the Enforcement Directorate seeking certain documents from the Director, Prohibition & Excise, Telangana which is investigating the drug trafficking case.

The Bench directed the State government and the trial court where the adjudication of drug trafficking case is going to hand over the entire material pertaining to the case to the Enforcement Directorate.

The Bench was hearing the plea filed by Anumula Revanth Reddy, when he was MLA from Kodangal Assembly constituency, Mahbubnagar in 2017 seeking a direction to entrust the ongoing investigation into the drug trafficking case to the Narcotics Control Bureau, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Central Economic Intelligence Bureau, the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation to bring the culprits to book.

After hearing the contentions of the Joint Director, Enforcement Directorate and the Special Government Pleader Sanjeev Kumar, Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma said, "The Enforcement Directorate has filed the counter affidavit and an interim application stating that the crimes which have been registered in 2017 relate to an international-level drug trafficking case and it is destroying the youth of this country and in order to find out the real culprits, action has to be taken under the PMLA Act, 2002 for which the documents and information sought by it is necessary."

The Chief Justice, while passing the orders said, "In the considered opinion of the court, the Enforcement Directorate is certainly entitled to get the copies of the FIR, charge sheets, statements recorded, digital evidence orders and all other relevant documents in respect of the 12 FIRs registered."