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Andhra moves Supreme Court over high court order on 3-capital issue
The Andhra Pradesh high court on March 3 ordered the state government to develop the capital city and the capital region within six months, while directing that all three civic wings of the state — legislature, executive and judiciary — will have Amaravati as the common capital.
The Andhra Pradesh government on Saturday approached the Supreme Court challenging the high court order stalling the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government’s move to have an ambitious three-capital plan for the state.
The Andhra Pradesh high court on March 3 ordered the state government to develop the capital city and the capital region within six months, while directing that all three civic wings of the state — legislature, executive and judiciary — will have Amaravati as the common capital.
The state government in its appeal filed on Saturday said that under the federal structure, every state has an inherent right to determine where it should carry out its capital functions from.
“To hold that state does not have the power to decide on its capital is violative of the basic structure of the Constitution,” the state said in its appeal filed through advocate Mahfooz A Nazki.
A three-judge bench of the high court comprising chief justice Prasanth Kumar Mishra and justices M Satyanarayana Murthy and DVSS Somayajulu in its verdict earlier this year held that the state government had no “legislative competence” to change or remove Amaravati as the capital of the three civic wings of the state. It also scoffed at the state’s legislative enactments, finding them to be an abuse of power and arbitrary exercise of power.
The court also slammed the YSR Congress Party government claiming its plan to change the capital smacked of “malafides” as it deprived 30,000 unsuspecting farmers of their livelihood and their right to live a dignified life. The state government aimed to establish Amaravati as the legislative capital, Visakhapatnam as the executive capital and Kurnool as the judicial capital.
The 307-page judgment on March 3 came on clutch of petitions filed by landowners of Amaravati who sacrificed their livelihood by surrendering their agricultural land in the Land Pooling scheme for development of the capital city and the capital region.
The petitioner landowners had challenged the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority Repeal Act, 2020 and the Andhra Pradesh Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act, 2020 by which the state wanted to change Amaravati as the capital.
They submitted before the high court that the state failed to deliver on its promise to return the developed plots as per the final master plan within three years. This deadline expired on January 20. The high court directed the state and the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) to discharge their duties enshrined under the AP Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) Act and Land Pooling Rules. It also directed the government to develop the re-constitutional plots belonging to landowners and hand it over to them within three months.
The state in its appeal before the top court said that the issue had become “infructuous” as the two legislations under challenge in the high court were subsequently withdrawn. An affidavit to this effect was also filed by the principal secretary and additional secretary of municipal administration and urban development department before the high court.
Further, the state argued that the HC decision violated the doctrine of “separation of power” as it pre-empted the legislature from taking up the issue despite the two laws being withdrawn.
“The state government was actively considering filing a review petition challenging the March 3 judgment. It might alternatively file a special leave petition before the Supreme Court,” state advocate general Subrahmanyam Sriram said in August while submitting a status report linked to the progress of work at Amaravati before the high court.
“The government was advised to file an affidavit in the high court seeking a review of its verdict to develop Amaravati as the state capital within six months,” he had added.
The HC ruling had set a six-month deadline for completion of the entire construction and development work of the capital. “The reconstituted plots belonging to land owners be developed with all the amenities and handed over to the land holders within three months,” the high court said in its order. However, the state government informed it that six months was too little a time to carry out the orders..
