The Telangana government informed the High Court on Saturday that it has withdrawn general consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation, reported PTI.

In absence of general consent, the central agency has to get permission from the state government on a case-to-case basis to conduct inquiry.

The Telangana government had issued the order to withdraw the consent on August 30, but it had not been made public. The additional advocate general of the state told the Telangana High Court about the decision at a hearing on Saturday.

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The High Court was hearing a petition filed by the Bharatiya Janata Party state general secretary, Gujjula Premendar Reddy seeking a CBI investigation into the allegations that some men linked to his party had tried to poach MLAs from the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi.

Reddy alleged that the poaching allegation was a conspiracy of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi to defame the BJP, reported NDTV. Reddy also accused the TRS of staging a drama “scripted, directed and produced” by state Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.

Telangana is the ninth state to have withdrawn general consent to the CBI. In March, Meghalaya had become joined West Bengal, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram as stated to have taken the decision.

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Many of these states have accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre of misusing the CBI to settle scores against their political opponents. In August, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had said that all states must withdraw their general consent to the CBI.

In October last year, the Uddhav Thackeray-led government in Maharashtra had also withdrawn the general consent to the CBI. However, after Eknath Shinde took over as the chief minister of the state, after forming an alliance in July of Shiv Sena rebel MLAs and the BJP, he reversed the Thackeray government’s decision.