VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court will start hearing petitions filed against the decision of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s three capitals decision from Monday.
The YSRCP government decided to the capital into three in different cities in order to ensure development in all parts of the state. It proposed administrative capital in Visakhapatnam, judicial capital in Kurnool and the legislative capital in Amaravati but it failed to materialise due to filing of numerous petitions in the High Court. The prolonged suspense over the fate of three capitals will end in the coming days with the High Court starting hearing of the petitions.
The petitioners, backed by principal Opposition Telugu Desam (TD) and other parties, hope to protect Amaravati as the only capital of the state. Farmers claimed that the government had entered into agreements with them for offering their land under the Land Pooling Scheme (LPS), promising to develop a new capital.
The government also hopes to get the court’s support for the three capitals' decision as it is aimed for the development of all regions of the state. The YSRCP government cited the statement of the Union government about leaving the decision regarding the capital to the state.
The High Court constituted a full bench comprising Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Nainala Jayasurya to hear more than 100 petitions filed by the farmers of Amaravati challenging the YSRCP government’s decision to form three capitals. It may be recalled that all these petitions against the two Bills — AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions and AP Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) Repeal Bills 2020 — were first heard by a High Court bench headed by the Chief Justice J.K. Maheswari. The hearings ended abruptly with the transfer of Justice Maheswari to Sikkim.
Later, Justice Goswami, who took over from Justice Maheswari, announced in March that a new bench would conduct fresh hearings.
The new bench was supposed to hear the cases afresh from May 3 and the Advocate Heneral requested that the cases be heard at the earliest.
However, on May 2, the High Court deferred its decision to hear the cases afresh to August 23 on the ground that it was not in a position to take up regular hearing of any cases in the wake of growing number of Coronavirus cases.
S. Adinarayana and K. Sekhar, associated with two social service organisations, said a strange condition prevailed in the state capital which created a lot of confusion among people for the past two years. They said the then government did a blunder by losing AP’s rights on using Hyderabad as capital for 10 years which turned a bane to the state to remain without a proper capital. They hoped that the High Court would resolve the capital issue in the coming days.
Pro-Amaravati farmers installed a statue of Nyaya Devatha (Goddess of Justice) at Mandadam, hoping to get justice in the Amaravati issue. Amaravati supporters in large numbers on Sunday worshipped the Goddess of Justice praying to fulfil their wish and to provide justice by continuing Amaravati as the only capital of Andhra Pradesh.
