THREE-JUDGE BENCH TO HEAR CAPITAL PETITIONS OF ANDHRA PRADESH

Hyderabad: The High Court of Andhra Pradesh has decided to restart hearings on all the 189 petitions against the Capital sharing i.e. shifting of executive capital to Visakhapatnam and judicial capital to Kurnool. For this, a three-member bench has been formed with Chief Justice AK Goswami, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice N. Jayasurya. In all probability, the bench will restart hearings next week itself. The court hearings on all these cases were taken up during the previous CJ Maheswari tenure. Once he was transferred following the CM of Andhra Pradesh Jagan Mohan Reddy’s letter, the hearings came to a grinding halt.

Once again, the cases came to the fore. The Jagan Reddy Government has started insisting on the early disposal of all these petitions so that it would be able to go ahead with the Capital shifting. Following a submission by the Advocate General, the fresh bench was formed. As per records, the majority petitions sought the High Court’s orders to stall the Capital shifting. The petitioners argued that the decentralisation and the CRDA repeal bills were unconstitutional and illegal. The Amaravati farmers were arguing that they sacrificed their lands only after the Government made huge promises to build the Capital city in their area. They said that the new Government committed breach of trust and violated the agreements that were signed between them.