VIJAYAWADA
Like the proposed shifting of the capital of Andhra Pradesh (A.P.) to Visakhapatnam in the name of ‘executive capital’, the State government’s plan to move the principal seat of the High Court (HC) to Kurnool, which is sought to be developed as the ‘judicial capital’, is stuck in litigation in the HC itself.
While stating in a written reply to a question asked by YSR Congress MPs Chinta Anuradha and Kotagiri Sridhar in the Lok Sabha on Friday that the matter is sub-judice, Union Minister of Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju said the Chief Minister came up with the idea of shifting the HC to Kurnool in February, 2020 but ‘no complete proposal is pending with the government’.
Explained | The three capitals issue of Andhra Pradesh
He reiterated the Central government’s stand that ‘shifting of principal seat of the HC is to be decided by the State government in consultation with the concerned High Court’.
The State government is responsible for meeting the expenditure incurred on HC while the Chief Justice is mandated to take care of the day-to-day administration of the court. Therefore, the State government and HC have to form their opinion regarding the shifting of the latter and submit a complete proposal to the Government of India.
The Minister said the HC of A.P. had been functioning with its principal seat at Amaravati with effect from January 1, 2019 following a Presidential Order. Andhra Pradesh got its own HC after the bifurcation of the unified State of A.P. as per the A.P. Reorganisation Act, 2014.
It may be noted that Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had kicked up a major political storm by making an announcement in December 2019 that he intended to have three capitals instead of a single greenfield capital in Amaravati and went on to pass the A.P. Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill in the Legislative Assembly in January 2020.
However, the whole concept of decentralisation, of which shifting the HC out of Amaravati is a part, is still to take a tangible shape as the issue is pending in court but the government has not given it up yet having made clear its intention to come up with a fresh legislation in furtherance of its agenda.
