HYDERABAD: The Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) investigation of the 2017 Tollywood drugs case has started the debate on whether the SIT was justified in considering the film personalities as victims rather than perpetrators.
According to an official who investigated the case in 2017, under the NDPS Act, there is no such person as a victim. Whoever is found in possession of the drug is punishable under the Act, whether a peddler or an end-user. But the Excise Department had then filed chargesheets in the court, omitting the Tollywood biggies from blame, as they were found to be the end-users and therefore were seen as victims.
M Padmanabha Reddy, secretary of Forum for Good Governance, said:” Victim is one who takes drugs unknowingly. They are usually students. In such a case, a lenient view could be taken. But in the Tollywood case, the celebs were defined as victims though they were aware that consumption of drugs was against law and they knew their deleterious effects. They cannot strictly be called victims.”
Reddy expressed disappointment that there was no progress in the case. He also quoted a delegation of MAA (Movie Artists Association), which, after calling on the Chief Minister in 2017, had said, “there would be no arrests (of film personalities) as the Excise Department is dealing with the matter smoothly.”As the ED is now getting indications that the money was transferred out of India, experts said that they would attract the provisions of both FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act) and PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act).
When ED officials went through the bank accounts of Puri Jagannadh, payments were understood to have been made to individuals outside India. The investigation might turn up evidence of payments of huge sums of money. If that happens, the account holders from whom the money went out would come under the cloud once again, Padmanabha Reddy said.