NEWS: Andhra Pradesh govt. moves SC seeks vacation of the HC stay order

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The Andhra Pradesh Government has sought the vacation of the High Court stay order to the Supreme Court.

The case was regarding the passage of the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill 2020 and the repeal of the Capital Region Development Authority Act 2014.

The farmers and Amaravati Parirakshana Samiti filed a caveat petition in the High Court challenging the passage of the two bills which called for three capitals to Andhra Pradesh. The three Capitals that are put in the bill are Vishakapatnam, Amaravati, and Kurnool which will be the Administrative, Legislative and Judicial capitals respectively.

The bill also mentioned that the state will be divided into different zones and each zone will have a board governing the zones which will comprise the Chief Minister, a Vice-Chairman, at least one MP, two MLAs, and 4 other members to be nominated by the state government.

There will be a full-time Secretary of the Board who will be in charge of these zones and will have the rank of the Principal Secretary. The Bill also will allow the state to notify the location of the departments and boards which will be located in any of the zones.

The High court asked the state to file a counter-affidavit against the petitions filed challenging both the bills. The High Court said that the status quo needs to be maintained and the hearing was shifted to August 14. The state, on the other hand, moved the case to the Supreme Court

The state cited a technical issue in challenging the case in the Supreme Court where the state has said that the bill was made law with the approval of both the Legislative Assembly and also the Legislative council and also received the consent of the Governor.

Further the state contended that the High Court ruling was not technical and didn’t bring these considerations when providing the judgment. So the state requested vacation of the High Court stay order.

The major reason for the Government to move to the Supreme Court was the directive passed by the High Court which came as a blow to the state plans of making Vishakhapatnam the capital of the state.