The Government of Andhra Pradesh has moved the Supreme Court to challenge the High Court order of March 3 which declared Amaravati as the lone capital of the state, in a bid to revive its plan to have three capitals.
The core issues have been highlighted in the appeal filed today through Advocate Mahfooz Nazki of the State government state that
1. The issue had become infructuous since the impugned legislations had been repealed.
The AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Repeal Bill, 2021, was introduced by Finance Minister Bugganna Rajendranath Reddy in the Assembly to scrap the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act, 2020, and AP Capital Region Development Authority Repeal Act, 2020, for the development of three capitals — Amaravati (legislative), Visakhapatnam (executive) and Kurnool (judicial).
2. Every State has an inherent right under the federal structure of the Constitution to determine where it should carry out its capital functions from.
3. To say that a State does not have the power to decide on its capital itself is violative of basic structure of the Constitution.
4. The judgement is violative of the doctrine of separation of powers since it pre-empts the legislature from taking up the issue.
A division bench led by Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra had said the state legislature had no competence to make any legislation on the state’s capital while directing the state government for not shifting any offices from the present capital city of Amaravati.
The court also order for payment of Rs 50,000 to the petitioner by the state government, while asking to be informed on regular basis over the implementation of its order on developing Amaravati.
The farmers of Amravati had challenged the proposed formation of three capitals by the state government. They claimed 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 led by YS Jagan Mohan Reddy have decided to make three capitals in different cities in order to ensure development in all parts of the state.
In the proposed plan, the administrative capital will be in Visakhapatnam, Kurnool will be the judicial capital and the legislative capital in Amaravati but it failed to materialise due to the filing of numerous petitions in the High Court.