Justice Nimmagadda Venkateswarlu of Andhra Pradesh High Court has directed the registry to place the matter of provision of camp office for Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and accommodation for senior government officials in Visakhapatnam during their visits to hold review meetings on the development of north Andhra region, before the Chief Justice for a decision whether or not to tag it with the pending three capitals cases (petitions that questioned the validity of the A.P. Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act of 2020).
Justice Venkateswarlu was dealing with a writ petition filed by Amaravati Parirakshana Samithi managing trustee Gadde Tirupathi Rao and two others, whose contention is that setting up the CM’s camp office and transit accommodation for the officers is a part of the government’s attempt to shift the capital from Amaravati to the executive capital in Visakhapatnam in violation of the judgment of a Full Bench of the High Court in the ‘three capitals’ case, which was challenged by the State government in the Supreme Court.
The petitioners insisted that the underlying objective was to shift the ‘seat of governance’ to Visakhapatnam, and informed the court that about 4,02,800 square feet of space has already been identified for setting up the said offices.
