Andhra Pradesh High Court to hear capital relocation case daily from May 3

The Andhra Pradesh High Court would hear the petitions opposing the three-capitals plan and the demotion of Amaravati from its sole mega capital status on a daily basis from May 3.

A three-member bench headed by chief justice Arup Kumar Goswami has met on Friday in virtual mode to consider the opinions of the Andhra Pradesh government and farmers' side advocates in order to decide on the course to be adopted for the case.

The Amaravati farmers, who parted with about 33,000 acres of land in 2015 for the grand, greenfield capital planned by the then Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, are on continuous agitation since December 2019.

Some of the farmers and public representatives have challenged the capital decentralisation and abrogation of the AP Capital Region Development Authority legislation brought in by the Jaganmohan Reddy government in January last year. The acts were notified in July.

However, hearing dozens of the petitions, the High Court had in August barred the YSRCP government from making any move shifting the executive capital to Visakhapatnam.

In January, Justice JK Maheshwari was replaced with Justice Goswami as the AP High Court chief justice, which is said to have caused an intermission in the case proceedings.

The reconstituted bench is expected to hear the arguments from the beginning, advocates stated. “The court has decided to hear the case on a daily basis from May 3 and utilise the recess in June to review the merits of the both side arguments in detail,” VV Lakshminarayana, counsel for the Amaravati farmers told DH.

YSRCP leaders are presenting the party's recent landslide victory in rural and municipal polls as the public endorsement of Jagan's three-capitals plan and are confident that the relocation would happen soon.

CM Jagan's plan is to establish the executive capital at Visakhapatnam, the judiciary in Kurnool with Amaravati remaining only as the legislative capital. Jagan has been accusing Naidu of a massive land scam in Amaravati.