The Andhra Pradesh government got no relief in the R-5 zone case in the Supreme Court as it turned down the State’s plea to suspend the stay imposed by the High Court on the construction of houses for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in the above zone where sites have already been allotted.
Hearing the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by the Andhra Pradesh government against the High Court’s interim stay order on Friday, a Division Bench of the apex court comprising Justices Sanjeev Khanna and Pankaj Mittal expressed a prima facie opinion that the High Court order under challenge was well considered by a full Bench, and sought to know if it was advisable to permit the government to spend more than ₹1,000 crore from the public exchequer when the writ petitions were still going through the process of adjudication.
Senior counsels Abhisek Manu Singhvi and S. Niranjan Reddy appeared for the State, while senior advocates Unnam Muralidhar Rao, Dama Seshadri Naidu and Shyam Divan represented the aggrieved farmers who gave their lands for the development of capital city in Amaravati.
