The Andhra Pradesh government will not take up shifting of administrative capital from Amaravati to Visakhapatnam till the state legislature passes the two bills – one with regard to abolition of AP Capital Region Development Authority Act and second with regard to formation of three capitals.
An assurance with this effect was given by Advocate General S Subrahmanyam in an oral submission to the high court on Friday.
He told the court that the government shall not shift the capital unless and until the legislation was made by passing of the bills for decentralization and repeal of APCRDA Act.
The high court directed the advocate general to record his statement or submission in the form of an affidavit before the court stating that the capital will not be shifted until the legislations are passed. It gave 10 days’ time to the Advocate General to file his response or submit the affidavit.
The bills were originally passed in the state assembly but were stalled in the state legislative council which referred the same to the select committee. But the select committee has not been formed yet due to resistance by the officials and the resolution pertaining to abolition of legislative council is languishing with the Centre.
The court was hearing a petition filed by some farmers of Amaravati. Unnam Muralidhar Rao, appearing for the petitioners brought to the notice of the court that the government was hell bent upon shifting the capital overnight and referred to the 'internal minutes of a meeting of executive committee of AP Secretariat Employees Association.
He also drew the attention of the court to the recent media reports and also to the press meet of YSRC parliamentary party leader V Vijay Sai Reddy about the shifting of capital.
The high court, while giving 10 days’ time to the Advocate General to file his affidavit, said if the government goes ahead with the capital shift, the petitioners could invoke urgency through the high court registry and request an earlier hearing before the bench.
The court also asked the advocate general to file his response to another petition with regard to allotment of land to landless poor and amendment to CRDA Masterplan, despite the high court's direction in earlier batch of writ petitions, suspending the allotment of land to landless poor.
The AG had requested 10 days’ time to file his response on the amended master plan of the CRDA and distribution of plots to the poor in Amaravati.
