Hyderabad: Telangana govt and the police top brass may claim to have given high priority to curbing drug activity in the state, but the conviction rate in NDPS Act cases in Telangana continues to remain poor.As per the data provided by Union minister of state for home affairs Nityananda Rai, in the Lok Sabha in 2025, Telangana ranked 28 among the 36 states and Union Territories in terms of conviction rate in NDPS Act cases.According to the data, during the three consecutive years from 2020 to 2022 in Telangana, 509, 1,346 and 1,279 cases under the NDPS Act were registered, respectively. The conviction rates during those three years were 23.8%, 25.6% and 27.4%.During the same period, Kerala, where 4,968, 5,695 and 26,619 NDPS Act cases were registered, recorded conviction rates of 97.1%, 98.9% and 99.4%. Similarly, Karnataka, with 4,054, 5,787 and 6,399 cases, recorded conviction rates of 90.3%, 93% and 89.9%, while Tamil Nadu, with 5,403, 6,852 and 10,385 cases, recorded conviction rates of 78.2%, 82.9% and 81.3%. Andhra Pradesh, with 866, 1,635 and 1,391 cases, fared worse than Telangana, recording conviction rates of 12.7%, 25.4% and 6.1%.However, Telangana police now say the situation has improved slightly in the state recently. In 2025, 2,542 NDPS cases were registered in Telangana, and convictions were secured in 81 cases. “In 2024, 2,169 cases were registered, and convictions were secured in 39 cases. So, the number of convictions improved in 2025,” said an EAGLE official.The situation in Hyderabad is perhaps the worst in the state. Since 2019, trials have commenced in 1,450 NDPS cases involving intermediate and commercial quantities of contraband at designated sessions courts.During the period, convictions were secured in only six cases, while the accused were acquitted in 250 cases. The remaining cases are still under trial. A review of some acquittal orders in cases registered in Hyderabad reveals that reliance solely on confessions of co-accused, witnesses turning hostile, failure to follow due procedure while collecting evidence and sending it for laboratory analysis, and failure to send evidence to the laboratory were among the reasons for the poor performance of law enforcement agencies in handling NDPS cases.For example, while acquitting a Dutch tech professional accused of possessing 2.6 gm of Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) at his flat in a gated community in the Financial District area of Gachibowli, a local court in Oct 2023 observed that excise sleuths had used their own constable as a mediator while conducting the search and seizure operation at the flat. The court said the absence of independent witnesses created doubt regarding the prosecution’s case. The seized contraband was also deposited before the court 45 days after seizure, and the court observed that the prosecution had failed to establish a secure chain of custody of the contraband.In another case registered at Punjagutta police station in Jan 2022, police arrested a 27-year-old Harvard graduate-turned-entrepreneur for allegedly procuring and consuming cocaine supplied by a foreign peddler. In Aug 2023, the high court quashed the proceedings against him, stating that the police had no evidence other than their own confession.‘Specialised training’“Except for the confessional statement of the petitioner, there is no evidence to suggest that he purchased or consumed a narcotic substance,” the court said in its order. While agreeing that the conviction rate was low in the state, a senior official involved in anti-narcotics operations said that field-level police personnel had been receiving specialised training in handling NDPS cases since 2024.
