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Hearing On Three Capitals Begins At Last!

Hearing On Three Capitals Begins At Last!

After repeated postponements, the Andhra Pradesh state high court on Monday commenced hearing of the petitions filed by the farmers of Amaravati and others against the decision of the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government to form three capitals for the state.

A three-member division bench of the high court comprising chief justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and two other judges -- justice M Satyanaryana Murthy and justice D V S S Somayajulu took up the hearing on two separate issues – abolition of AP Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) and formation of three capitals for decentralised administration.

The government’s counsels, however, requested the chief justice to drop the other two judges on the bench on the plea that they had given anti-government judgements in the past. But the chief justice rejected their argument.

The high court bench observed that there was a lot of significance to the hearing on the capital city issues. The chief justice observed that because of this case, the entire development in the state had come to a standstill.

Stating that the delay was causing a lot of inconvenience to the petitioners and respondents, the high court said it would complete the hearing at the earliest and deliver its judgement as soon as possible.

In August, the high court bench, comprising then chief justice Arup Kumar Goswami, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Nainala Jayasurya took up the hearing of the cases pertaining to Amaravati and three capitals.

However, counsels for the petitioners (Amaravati farmers) requested the bench to defer the cases due to increasing number of Covid-19 cases in the state.

The state government’s counsels, too, said it was for the court to decide how and when to conduct the hearings, after examining the pandemic conditions across the country.

Later, the high court bench postponed the hearing to November 15, after going through the status report of the Covid-19 cases in the country in general and Andhra Pradesh in particular.

One doesn’t know how long this hearing would go on. Even if the high court gives its judgement after prolonged hearing, there is no guarantee that the petitioners or the government would not go to Supreme Court depending on the judgement of the high court.

Under these circumstances, one wonders whether the issue of three capitals is settled in the near future. The issue has been dragging for more than a year.

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Tags: High Court