Andhra govt moves SC challenging HC order against 3 Capitals plan

The Andhra Pradesh government has approached the Supreme Court against the high court order stalling the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government’s move to have an ambitious three-Capital plan for the state by directing that all three civic wings of the state – legislature, executive and judiciary—will have Amaravati as the common capital.

The high court on March 3 directed the state government to develop the Capital city and the Capital region within six months. The state government aimed to establish Amaravati as the legislative Capital, Visakhapatnam as the executive Capital and Kurnool as the judicial Capital.

In an appeal filed on Saturday, the state government said that under the federal structure, every state has an inherent right to determine where it should carry out its capital functions from. “To hold that state does not have the power to decide on its Capital is violative of the basic structure of the Constitution,” the state said in its appeal filed through advocate Mahfooz A Nazki.

A three-judge bench of the high court comprising chief justice Prasanth Kumar Mishra and justices M Satyanarayana Murthy and DVSS Somayajulu in its verdict held that the state government had no “legislative competence” to change or remove Amaravati as the capital of the three civic wings – legislature, executive, and judiciary of the state. The high court scoffed at the state’s legislative enactments finding it to be an abuse of power and arbitrary exercise of power.