A single-judge Bench of the High Court consisting of Justice Nyapathy Vijay directed the government pleaders to secure instructions on merits to enable further hearing of the writ petition filed by Amaravati Parirakshana Samithi managing trustee Gadde Tirupathi Rao and two others against the provision of accommodation for the Chief Minister, Ministers and senior government officials in Visakhapatnam city, which is said to be part of the government’s attempts to shift the capital out of Amaravati.
Justice Vijay told the Special Government Pleader (GP) C. Sumon and GP (Home) Maheswara Reddy that it was open for the State to obtain directions to get the matter listed before a Full Bench (FB) and file an interim application for it.
Appearing for the petitioners, senior advocate Unnam Muralidhar Rao alleged that the government was trying to secretly shift the capital from Amaravati to Visakhapatnam and sought an interim order against it, to which the judge did not agree, and the GPs replied that shifting would not happen overnight.
After hearing both sides, Justice Vijay posted the matter for further hearing on December 12. It may be recalled that during the previous hearing, Advocate-General S. Sriram said it was a case of ‘forum shopping’ by the petitioners as they moved the court in spite of being aware of the fact that the matters (related to the proposed shifting of capital) were before a Full Bench of the High Court.
