Andhra Pradesh High Court to hear 3 capital issue, CRDA repeal bill on August 6

On Thursday, the Andhra Pradesh High Court put off the hearing of petitions on three capitals bill, Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) repeal bill to August 6. The bench headed by Justice Rakesh Kumar and Justice Satyanarana Murty heard the petitions and differed the hearing, ANI reported.

The Court adjourned the matter because the pagination of the court bundle is not complete and gave the registry one week's time to paginate for the completion. One of the counsel argued that there is a writ petition filed for construction of permanent High Court in Amaravati and that may be taken up. The full bench refused to observe that if the state succeeds in the litigation, then the High Court location could be shifted and therefore there can't be any adjudication of the said writ petition at this juncture.

TDP writes to Governor

Meanwhile, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) National President Chandrababu Naidu shot off a letter to Andhra Pradesh Governor Biswabhushan Harichandan, requesting him to consider the interests and future aspirations of all sections of the state before giving assent to bills meant for the decentralisation of the state capital.

This comes after the state government sent the Decentralisation of Capital bill and the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) repeal bill for the assent of the Governor on Saturday.

In a six-page letter, the TDP chief said the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council has not rejected but only referred the 'two anti-people bills' to the Select Committee. When the bills were unlawfully brought before the House for a second time, the Council did not consider the same as they were pending before the Select Committee.

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Protests against the 3-capital system

The state Assembly had earlier passed the 'Andhra Pradesh Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill 2020' which proposes to have a legislative capital at Amaravati, executive capital and Raj Bhavan at Visakhapatnam and judicial capital at Kurnool. This would mean that the Secretariat would be situated in Visakhapatnam, High Court in Kurnool and State Assembly at Amaravati.

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This decision was met with severe backlash especially in Amravati which has been witnessing relentless protests against the move for months. The opposition including former CM and TDP Chief Chandrababu Naidu has urged Reddy to reevaluate his decision decentralising Amravati, pointing out that farmers under Amaravati Joint Action Committee (JAC) have been agitating against this move and 66 of them have lost their lives due to this protest.

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(With agency inputs)