The apex court also stayed the AP High Court order to develop Amaravati in 6 months, and set the next hearing for 31 January.
The Solicitor General sought time from the Supreme Court to file the reply to the petitions challenging the decision to scrap reservation. (Commons)
A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Monday, 28 November, stayed the order by the Andhra Pradesh High Court — issued in March — directing the state government to develop Amaravati as the capital city within six months.
The bench of Justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna, which was hearing an appeal filed by the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government, said it would examine the legal questions involved in the matter — including the legislative competence of the state government to decide the location of the capital — in the next hearing, slated on 31 January, 2023.
“Direction 5 is completely unacceptable, that you develop the capital city in six months. What do you mean by the capital city? Direction 3-7 stayed till the next date of hearing,” said the bench while hearing the petition.
The top court also sought the response of the Union government and other respondents on the Andhra Pradesh government’s appeal.
The bench while hearing the matter on Monday said, “Courts cannot become a town planner.”
Justice Nagarathna asked: “What kind of directions have the high court passed. Can the court be a town planner? The court wants the planning to be done in two months.”
The apex court also found the directions issued by the high court to have overstepped the “separation of power” principle.
The bench said, “Is there no separation of power in the state of Andhra Pradesh? How can the high court begin acting as an executive?”
It added: “The state is to be able to decide where the capital ought to be.”
The bench concluded: “Issue notice. Service of notice to be completed by last week of December. Top of the list on 31 January, 2023. Till the next date of hearing.”
On 3 March, a three-judge bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court headed by Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra ordered that Amaravati be developed as the capital of the state within six months, as planned under the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) Act brought by the previous TDP government.
The bench also observed that the AP state legislature had no legislative competence to enact any law for shifting the three organs of the state.
The stay given by the high court earlier on shifting government offices from Amaravati to other parts of the state would also continue, said the high court bench in March.
The division bench, comprising Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justices M Satyanarayana Murthy and DVSS Somayajulu, delivered the judgment on a batch of petitions filed by the farmers who had parted their land for the Amaravati capital city, opposing the Jagan government’s plan to create three new capitals for the state by scrapping the APCRDA Act.
The farmers approached the high court after the state government brought in law scrapping the APCRDA Act and the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act.
The state government subsequently repealed the two controversial laws but said it would bring them back in a new form.
“The state and APCRDA are directed to complete the process of development and infrastructure in the Amaravati Capital City and Region providing basic amenities like roads, drinking water, drainage, electricity in terms of Section58 of APCRDA Act read with Rule 12(6) of Land Pooling Rules, 2015 within one month from the date of this order. The State is directed to construct and develop the Amaravati capital city and capital region within six months time, as agreed in the terms and conditions of the Development Agreement-cum Irrevocable General Power of Attorney in Form 9.14, provisions of the APCRDA Act and Land Pooling Rules, 2015. The State and APCRDA are directed to complete the Town Planning Schemes as per Section 61 of the APCRDA Act,” read the 307-page judgement order from the three-judge bench.
Six months after the high court struck down its three-capital plan, the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government on 17 September approached the Supreme Court on the subject.
The government filed a special leave petition (SLP) with the apex court challenging the high court’s order, which upheld Amaravati as the only capital of Andhra Pradesh.
The petition claimed the order undermined the government’s legislative competence to change the state’s capital.
“Our government’s stated commitment to the people is the decentralisation of governance, and the trifurcation of capitals is one of the milestones in pursuit of that commitment. The filing of the SLP by the state is another remedy in law being sought by the state to enable further progress in its resolve,” said a top official from the state government.
In the petition, the government said that if a state, re-organised in pursuance of Central legislation under Articles 3 and 4 of the Constitution, was held to be without the power to reorganise its capital, it would be destructive to the federal structure of the Constitution.
“The high court held that the CRDA Act is legislation made by the state under Article 258 of the Constitution, meaning that the state legislated the said Act as a delegate of the Union of India,” said the petition.
“When the CRDA Act was legislated in 2014, the express text of the Act showed that the state exercised its powers under List II Entry 5 for constituting a local body. Neither the Union nor the state said that the CRDA legislation was a part of the delegation of the Union. In fact, the Union government filed an affidavit (saying) that the shifting of capitals was within the domain of the state,” it added.
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