Hyderabad: The plan to build three capitals for Andhra Pradesh will remain unrealised in the current tenure of chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy because the Supreme Court has declined to entertain his government’s petition to settle the legal dispute over the issue till April, people familiar with the matter said.
Last week, there were two important developments in the apex court in regard to the state government’s plan to build three capitals – administrative capital at Visakhapatnam, legislative capital at Amaravati and judicial capital at Kurnool — instead of a single capital city at Amaravati, as was proposed by the previous Telugu Desam Party government headed by N Chandrababu Naidu.
In the first development, a division bench of the Supreme Court comprising justices Sanjeev Khanna and Deepankar Dutta on January 3 refused to entertain a plea to take up an urgent hearing on a special leave petition filed by the state government on September 17, 2022, that challenged the verdict of the state high court of March 3, 2022, declaring Amaravati as the only capital.
The two-judge bench said it would take a decision only after hearing the arguments of both the sides comprehensively in April. Andhra Pradesh will most likely elect a new government in March or latest by April.
The state had every right to decide the location of its capital and there was nothing in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act that said the state should have only one capital, the counsel argued on behalf of the state government.
The state government had in November 2021 withdrawn its earlier bill on the formation of three capitals, he pointed out. Therefore, the high court verdict against three capitals had no validity, he argued.
But the top court’s bench said there was no scope for granting a stay on the high court judgement without hearing the arguments of the respondents, the farmers of Amaravati in this case. The bench gave four weeks to the respondents to present their counter arguments before posting the case for further hearing to April.
In the second development, the same division bench on January 5 turned down another plea of the state government petition for an urgent hearing on its petition challenging the high court order stalling construction of some 50,000 houses for weaker sections of society in the new residential zone (R-5 zone) of Amaravati by changing its master plan.
This zone was previously earmarked for industries, businesses and other commercial purposes in the master plan for the Amaravati capital area. Farmers in Amaravati opposed the change and moved the high court in July 2023, which on August 3 granted a stay on the housing project.
The bench deferred the hearing on the special leave petition to April, when it will also hear the petitions on the Amaravati issue, indicating that there will be a status quo on the housing programme.
The houses were sanctioned by the central government on plots already distributed among the beneficiaries, senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued for the state government. The Supreme Court bench, however, said there was no hurry in the construction and posted further hearing on the issue in April.
In a related development, the state high court on December 23 granted a stay on the government’s plan to shift the chief minister’s camp office and that of all his cabinet colleagues to Visakhapatnam on the pretext of reviewing the developmental programmes in north coastal Andhra region. It was hearing a batch of petitions filed by Amaravati farmers, who challenged the government’s decision and its impact on Amaravati.
Fate of three capitals system
The developments in the Supreme Court and the state high court have virtually put paid to Jagan Mohan Reddy’s ambitious plan to form three capitals for the state, at least during his present tenure.
There are indications that the elections to the state assembly in Andhra Pradesh are likely to be held in the last week of March. In 2019, the assembly elections were held on April 11. Since the Supreme Court deferred the hearing on three capitals issue to April, there is no possibility of the chief minister implementing his decision or even shift his camp office to Visakhapatnam till the state elections are held.
“The three capitals plan is now a gone case. There might be some hope for Jagan to revive it only if he comes back to power for a second term by winning the assembly elections, but only subject to a positive verdict from the Supreme Court,” said Mallu Rajesh, political analyst based in Visakhapatnam. “If the YSRCP (YSR Congress Party) loses the elections and the TDP comes back to power, Naidu will certainly withdraw the SLP in the Supreme Court and go ahead with the development of Amaravati as the capital city.”
The TDP chief, addressing a rally at Tiruvuru in Krishna district on Sunday, said that it was unfortunate that Andhra Pradesh had no capital city for the past five years due to lopsided policies of the state government. “Had Amaravati city been completed, it would have become another Cyberabad by now. In another three months, the TDP would come to power and develop Amaravati as a world-class city,” Naidu said.
The plan was getting delayed due to legal hurdles, said Y V Subba Reddy, YSRCP’s in-charge in Visakhapatnam. “Jagan will start functioning from Visakhapatnam soon after overcoming all the legal hurdles,” he said.