PNS|Vijayawada
A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Sanjeev Khanna and Bela M Trivedi on Tuesday refused to take up urgently the special leave petition of the Jagan government challenging the state high court judgment of March 3, 2022, declaring Amaravati as the only capital of the State. It appears Andhra Pradesh will continue to be a State without a permanent and definite capital city at least during the present YSRCP regime of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The Apex court also refused to grant a stay on the High Court judgment, except for the portions which were stayed in the past removing the cap on the completion of pending works in Amaravati’s capital region.
The bench said it had many more important matters to deal with and hence, posted the case to December.
“We shall take up a full-fledged hearing on the capital issue then. There is no urgency for the same,” the bench said, turning down the plea of former attorney general KK Venugopal, who argued on behalf of the state government. The Supreme Court asked the government to send notices to all the respondents (farmers) in the case, after removing those who died during the course of the hearing. That the case is now posted to December would mean the Jagan Mohan Reddy government’s ambitious plan of creating three capitals for Andhra Pradesh continues to hang in balance. There is no guarantee that the Supreme Court will complete all the hearings in December itself and give its verdict. In such a case, it might as well get dragged till March or April, by which time the state would go to elections again. If Jagan comes back to power, he would pursue the case. But if the TDP comes to power, it would definitely withdraw the SLP in the Supreme Court and go ahead with Amaravati as the capital.
