The stalemate over the continuation of Amaravati as the capital of Andhra Pradesh continued with the Supreme Court deferring the hearing to November 28 in view of the number of petitions filed by the farmers and the special leave petition filed by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government.
A division bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices KM Joseph and Justice Hrishikesh Roy took up as many as 36 petitions for hearing – including eight on Amaravati and 28 on the decision on capital based on state bifurcation act.
Acting on a plea by senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singvi and former attorney general K K Venugopal, who argued on behalf of the government, the Supreme Court bench said it would hear the cases pertaining to state bifurcation issues and the Amaravati capital issue separately.
Venugopal brought to the notice of the Supreme Court bench that Amaravati farmers had filed a contempt petition in the high court against the state government for not implementing the March 3 judgement of the high court.
However, the Supreme Court bench said the farmers might not insist on the contempt petition in the high court till the special leave petition filed by the government in the Supreme Court was disposed of.
State government counsel Vaidyanathan read out the high court verdict which said the state had no powers to decide on the capital city. He asked for stay on the judgement of the AP high court.
The SC bench, however, said it would examine all the issues when the SLP comes up for hearing on November 28.
