E-Paper
Supreme Court defers hearing in Amaravati capital case to November 28
Senior advocate C S Vaidyanathan, arguing for the state government, brought to the notice of the Supreme Court bench the high court’s observations that the state had no powers to decide on the location of the capital city.
The stalemate on whether Andhra Pradesh should have a single capital city or three capitals continues, as the Supreme Court on Monday deferred the hearing on a plea by the state government seeking a stay on the state high court’s verdict of March 3 declaring Amaravati as the only capital of the state.
A division bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices KM Joseph and Justice Hrishikesh Roy posted the hearing to November 28 on the special leave petition filed by the state government challenging the high court’s judgement which said the state legislature had no power to decide on the capital city.
Senior advocate C S Vaidyanathan, arguing for the state government, brought to the notice of the Supreme Court bench the high court’s observations that the state had no powers to decide on the location of the capital city.
The SC bench, however, said it would examine all the issues when the SLP comes up for hearing on November 28.
On September 17, the YSR Congress party-led government filed the SLP, challenging the March 3 judgment by the state’s high court that upheld Amaravati as the only capital of Andhra Pradesh while declaring that the state legislature had no competence to pass any legislation forming the three capitals.
Stating that it was committed to decentralisation of governance by forming three capitals – executive capital at Visakhapatnam, legislative capital at Amaravati and judicial capital at Kurnool — the state government said it had all the powers to reorganise its capital.
The government also challenged the high court’s observation that the state legislature has no legal competence to pass the legislation on three capitals, saying it was in contravention of the principle of separation of powers between various organs of governance, which is a basic structure of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court bench took up hearing on as many as 36 petitions, including eight on Amaravati and 28 on the Andhra Pradesh Bifurcation Act, which called for the formation of new capital city for the residuary Andhra Pradesh post-bifurcation of the combined state.
Acting on a plea by senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singvi and former attorney general K K Venugopal, who argued on behalf of the government, the Supreme Court bench said it would hear the cases pertaining to state bifurcation issues and the Amaravati capital issue separately.
Venugopal brought to the notice of the Supreme Court bench that Amaravati farmers had filed a contempt petition in the high court against the state government for not implementing the March 3 judgement of the high court.
However, the Supreme Court bench said the farmers might not insist on the contempt petition in the high court till the special leave petition filed by the government in the Supreme Court was disposed of.
