New Delhi, Aug 26 (IANS): In a setback to the Andhra Pradesh government, the Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to entertain a plea that sought vacation of a status-quo order against the state's three-capitals plan.
A bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy, and MR shah declined to interfere with the interim order passed by the High Court.
The bench said that the matter "requires an early decision". An interim order, first passed on August 4 by a three-Judge HC bench, was extended on August 14 to August 27.
The apex court said that it is not keen to interfere in the case at this stage, as the HC has already fixed day-to-day hearings on the issue. The SC bench, however, said that the High Court should try to decide the matter "expeditiously".
Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that the vacation of the HC stay was important as it had brought the entire exercise to a standstill.
Dwivedi contended that preparatory steps have to be taken and questioned how could the judiciary decide where the executive will function from?
Another counsel in the matter told the bench that the matter is listed for day-to-day hearings from Thursday onwards.
The plea filed through advocate Mahfooz Nazki contended that the HC order to stay the implementation of the Gazette Notifications (the Governor had given his assent on July 31) is without valid reasons and also bad in law. This HC order came on a plea filed by a group of farmers.
"The present Special Leave Petition is being filed against the Order dated August 4 passed by the Andhra High Court in Amravati. By way of the said order, the High Court, without even a prima-facie finding on the aspect of constitutional validity, has been pleased to stay the operations of two legislations passed by the state of Andhra Pradesh," the petition read.
The state government is keen to name Kurnool as Andhra Pradesh's judicial capital, Visakhapatnam as executive capital, and Amravati as legislative capital.
Earlier, Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and Justice RF Nariman had recused from hearing the matter.