HC notices to Somesh Kumar, SIT chief in Tollywood drugs case

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Thursday issued notices to Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and Sarfaraz Ahmed, director SIT, state prohibition and excise department in connection with the 2017 Tollywood drugs trafficking case.

The notices were issued in a contempt case filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which complained that the state government and SIT, which was constituted to probe the drugs case, had failed to comply with the court orders in handing over copies and relevant material related to the probe done by SIT state prohibition and excise department in the 12 cases registered in 2017, in which several Tollywood personalities were reportedly involved.

ED filed the contempt case a fortnight back.

While hearing the case on Thursday, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili issued notices to Kumar and Ahmed directing them to respond within 10 days to the contentions raised by ED.

The court had on February 19 directed the state government to furnish copies of the FIR and chargesheet pertaining to the case. The interim applications were filed by the ED in the PIL filed by Revanth Reddy in 2017 demanding a CBI probe into the alleged involvement of high-profile persons, including from Tollywood.

Although the court was not inclined to issue directions as sought by Revanth Reddy, it accepted ED's plea for SIT inquiry details.

On Thursday, Sanjeev Kumar, special counsel for the state government, tried to explain that the state government had handed over the details that were available with it. The contempt case was adjourned to April 25.