Andhra Pradesh Government files SLP in Supreme Court against HC verdict on Amaravati
Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh Government has filed a SLP in the Supreme Court on the High Court judgement on the capital of Amaravati.
CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy approached the Apex Court on Friday night for relief against the High Court’s March 3rd judgement. The State Government sought to challenge the High Court judgment on six grounds in the SLP, including the power to legislate. According to the official sources some corrections were required to be made in the SLP and a modified version would be filed in Supreme Court on Monday.
In the common unanimous order, a three-member bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justices M Satyanarayana Murthy and Somayajulu on March 3rd noted that the establishment of three organs of the State Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary is part and parcel of the supplemental, incidental or consequential provisions employed in Article 4 of the Constitution.
Parliament alone is competent to undertake such exercise, but not the state legislature. The facts on record like approval of passing of legislation (APCRDA Act, 2014) and taking up land under the Land Pooling Scheme under the APCRDA Act, 2014, payment of Rs 15K crore for the capital city and region development is sufficient to conclude that Parliament delegated power to the state under Article 258 (2) of the Constitution of India, which is a one-time delegation, the bench had observed.
State contended in the SLP that it would be destructive of the federal structure of the Constitution, if the State did not have the power to re-organise its capital. Whether adjudication of an academic issue, that too, about the competence of legislature, a coordinate organ of governance of the State, after the withdrawal of the three capitals legislation, constitutes a breakdown of the principle of separation of powers between various organs of governance, which is a basic structure of the constitution is the other contention raised by the AP government.
It also noted that the settled position in law in the country is that the power under Article 258 is only relatable to a delegation of executive and administrative powers and not the legislative power of the Union.
Our Government’s stated commitment to the people is decentralization of governance. Trifurcation of capital is one of the milestones in pursuit of that commitment.