The five-member committee of judges, constituted by the Acting Chief Justice (ACJ) of the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad, is likely to visit next week a few buildings in Vijayawada, where a temporary High Court for Andhra Pradesh is proposed to be located.
This follows the renewed thrust being laid on the bifurcation of the High Court of Judicature, which is common for A.P. and Telangana as on date, in the wake of the letter written to the Acting Chief Justice by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu earlier this month.
A few choices
The committee will report to the ACJ on the buildings that are suitable for establishing the temporary High Court, which is expected to be completed by June 2018.
According to reliable sources, Acharya Nagarjuna University; a ready-to-occupy building near Gannavaram that was originally planned to be let out to IT companies; a few buildings in a private college at Ibrahimpatnam; and the district court buildings in Guntur are among the choices before the committee.
The High Court of the combined State had functioned from the Guntur District Court Complex from 1954 to 1956 when Kurnool was the capital city of the State.
It may be noted that the State government has identified land and finalised the designs for the High Court building in the proposed Justice City, but it is apparently in a hurry to make the court functional from the temporary premises till the permanent facility gets ready.
Accordingly, the Chief Minister has written a letter to the Acting Chief Justice.
The crux of the issue is that Telangana’s proposal to provide separate buildings in Hyderabad for the A.P. High Court’s temporary campus did not materialise as the Supreme Court ruled it out.
The two Telugu-speaking States have since expedited the process of bifurcation of the High Court of Judicature.
