Supreme Court stays HC’s order to develop Amaravati as Andhra capital in 6 months

The Andhra Pradesh High Court’s March judgement requiring the state government to transform Amaravati into the capital city within six months has been delayed by the Supreme Court. Justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna’s bench said, “Courts cannot become a town planner and Chief Engineer”

The Supreme Court determined that the high court’s directives went too far in terms of the “separation of power” principle.

The YS Jagan Mohan Reddy administration had appealed, and the bench was hearing it. The court declared that it would review the relevant legal issues on January 31. The bench questioned whether there is no separation of powers in Andhra Pradesh. How can the high court start behaving like an executive, the Supreme Court asked in a March 3 ruling that the government “build and develop the capital city and capital region of Amaravati within a period of six months”.

The high court additionally mandated that essential utilities including roads, drinking water, drainage, and power be provided in the Amaravati Capital City and Region within a month of receiving the order from the state government and the Andhra Pradesh capital region development authority.

In September, the state government filed a petition with the Supreme Court challenging the high court ruling that had halted its ambitious three-capital plan for the state. The state stated “To hold that the state does not have the power to decide on its capital is violative of the basic structure of the Constitution,” the state said in its appeal filed through advocate Mahfooz A Nazki.

The state administration’s establishment of three capitals—executive capital in Visakhapatnam, legislative capital in Amaravati, and judicial capital in Kurnool—demonstrated its dedication to decentralising power. It emphasised that it had the authority to restructure its capital.

The high court declared that Amaravati will serve as the common capital for the state’s three civic pillars—the legislature, executive branch, and judiciary—in its lengthy, 307-page judgement from March 3. The landowners who had given up their agricultural land in the Land Pooling scheme for the construction of the capital city and the capital region thereafter filed a flurry of petitions.

Landowners who filed the petition opposed the state’s plans to replace Amaravati as the state capital by opposing the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority Repeal Act of 2020 and the Andhra Pradesh Decentralization and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act of 2020 before the High Court. While the hearing was taking place, the state repealed this law, and the high court was notified of this. The state claimed that after withdrawing, the HC was unable to continue.