Keeping the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government on tenterhooks, the Andhra Pradesh high court extended stay on the capital shift for another 13 days and ordered status on Amaravati till August 27.
The high court, which has been hearing a batch of nearly 61 petitions on the capital issue, said there was no need for any urgency in shifting the offices from Amaravati to other places, when the state was going through a crisis of Coronavirus pandemic.
State government’s counsel Rakesh Trivedi argued that the stay would affect the functioning of the government. He appealed to the court to post the case to a further date, but not extend status quo.
Trivedi said the status quo order had prevented shifting of the CM’s camp office and other important offices from Amaravati to Visakhapatnam. As a result of the court orders, the government was in a position to implement the laws enacted by the state legislature.
However, counsels for petitioners strongly objected to his argument. They said the petitioners had approached the court for a status quo only because the acts enacted by the government were against the spirit of the law. They argued that the three capitals formation was against the spirit of AP Reorganisation Act.
Stating that the AP Reorganisation Act had a mention of only one capital, the high court said it would hear the petitions directly. Later, it extended the status quo to August 27.
