The suspense over continuing Amaravati as the only capital city of Andhra Pradesh or forming three capitals for the state will continue for some more time, with Supreme Court deferring the hearing following recusal of chief justice of India U U Lalith from the case.
A special leave petition filed by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government challenging the March 3 judgement of the state high court last month was to come up before a three-member bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
However, in the morning itself, one of the three judges hearing the SLP of the state government Justice S Ravindra Bhatt made himself not available to the case.
As a result, only two-member bench comprising Chief Justice U U Lalith and and Justice Bela Trivedi took up the petition.
But as the issue came up before the bench, Lalith took a brief break and went into his chambers. He returned only after five minutes and recused himself from hearing the case, using “not before me” provision.
The CJI said he would refer the case to another three-member bench and request that the issue would be heard and settled at the earliest. He asked the registry to initiate the steps for creation of a new bench.
Till a new bench is constituted, the matter cannot be listed and so, the Amaravati issue continues to hang in balance for some more time.
In November 2020, Justice Lalith, who was then a judge in the Supreme Court, recused himself in a similar manner from hearing a petition seeking action against Jagan Mohan Reddy for raising allegations against another Supreme Court judge, Justice NV Ramana, who later became the CJI.
He said as a lawyer, he had represented one of the parties and hence, he could not hear the case against Jagan Mohan Reddy. In the past, Lalith was Jagan’s lawyer in the alleged quid pro quo case in the Supreme Court.
