Justice Nimmagadda Venkateswarlu of A.P. High Court (HC) directed the registry to place the matter of provision of camp office for the Chief Minister and accommodation for senior government officials in Visakhapatnam during their visits to hold review meetings on the development of north Andhra (‘Uttarandhra’) region, before the Chief Justice for taking a decision whether or not to tag it with the pending three capitals cases (petitions that questioned the validity of the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act of 2020).
He 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 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 i.e. Visakhapatnam in violation of the judgment of a Full Bench (FB) of the HC in the ‘three capitals’ case, which was challenged by the State in the Supreme Court.
The petitioners insisted that the underlying objective was to shift the ‘seat of governance’ itself to Visakhapatnam, and informed the court that about 4,02,800 square feet of space was already identified for setting up the said offices.
The State had been arguing that apart from conducting review meetings, the CM and senior functionaries of the government have to undertake field visits and make night halts. Therefore, providing them transit accommodation should not be construed as shifting the offices from the Secretariat in Amaravati.
In his order, Justice Venkateswarlu restrained the State from shifting / relocating the offices/departments from the Secretariat in Amaravati to Visakhapatnam pursuant to G.O.Rt.No.2283 till the matter is heard by an appropriate Bench, in order to avoid unnecessary expenditure thereof and on maintaining offices both in Amaravati and Visakhapatnam, since the State is a trustee of public money.
