A full Bench of the High Court (HC) led by Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and consisting of Justices D.V.S.S. Somayajulu and C. Manavendranath Roy posted the contempt petitions filed by farmers against the alleged non - compliance of the HC order (dated March 3, 2022) on the proposed three capitals, to November 28.
Advocate General S. Sriram appeared for the State, which filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court (SC) a month ago challenging the impugned HC order. He requested the court to adjourn the contempt cases by citing the fact that an SLP had been filed in the apex court and it was pending.
The HC turned down an appeal for the impleadment of Principal Secretary of Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department, saying that the officer was not a party to the relevant writ petitions.
Appearing for a section of the aggrieved farmers, senior advocate Unnam Muralidhar Rao argued that since the AP-CRDA Act and the LPS (Land Pooling Schemes) Rules were restored, the State and CRDA were statutorily and Constitutionally obligated to complete the capital works.
The filing of SLP was shown as a reason only to bide time for commencing the pending works. The government blatantly violated the HC order of continuous mandamus and went on to file the SLP. In doing so, the government took the HC for granted, Mr. Rao observed.
The HC had ruled that the State lacked legislative competence to shift the capital and the government should develop Amaravati as the capital in a specified timeframe.
