HYDERABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Andhra Pradesh government to file an affidavit in two weeks informing by what time the new building in Andhra Pradesh would be made ready for the functioning of the new High Court for the State.
The Apex Court bench comprising Justice AK Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan was passing this order on the special leave petition filed by the Central government challenging the 2015 judgment of the High Court division bench headed by then Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta, which ruled that the high court, whether temporary or permanent, can be set up only on the territory of AP.
The central government earlier contended that under the provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, there is no bar that the existing common High Court cannot be divided into two respective high courts of the States (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) and shifted to a new building/premises in the same city until construction and constitution of a new High Court within the territory of AP.
Of the total pending cases, only one third belonged to Telangana, while the rest were of AP, and that the disposal was being delayed because of non-bifurcation of existing high court comprising 47 court halls. The Centre sought the court to set aside the impugned judgment of the High Court. When the matter came up for hearing on Monday, the bench asked the counsel for the AP government by what time the new building for the AP High Court would be ready.
In reply, the AP government counsel submitted that the new building would be ready by December this year. On the other hand, the counsels appearing for the Centre and Telangana government pointed out that the State government has been saying this for the last three years. The bench then directed the AP government counsel to place his submissions before the court in the form of an affidavit in the next two weeks, and adjourned the case hearing by three weeks.