No complete proposal to shift Andhra Pradesh High Court to Kurnool is pending with the Centre: Union Minister Kiren Rijiju

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju reiterated the Centre’s stand that ‘shifting of principal seat of the High Court is to be decided by the State government in consultation with the concerned High Court’. 

VIJAYAWADA

Like the proposed shifting of the capital of Andhra Pradesh (A.P.) to Visakhapatnam in the name of ‘executive capital’, the State government’s plan to move the principal seat of the High Court (HC) to Kurnool, which is sought to be developed as the ‘judicial capital’, is stuck in litigation in the HC itself. 

While stating in a written reply to a question asked by YSR Congress MPs Chinta Anuradha and Kotagiri Sridhar in the Lok Sabha on Friday that the matter is sub-judice, Union Minister of Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju said the Chief Minister came up with the idea of shifting the HC to Kurnool in February, 2020 but ‘no complete proposal is pending with the government’. 

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He reiterated the Central government’s stand that ‘shifting of principal seat of the HC is to be decided by the State government in consultation with the concerned High Court’. 

The State government is responsible for meeting the expenditure incurred on HC while the Chief Justice is mandated to take care of the day-to-day administration of the court. Therefore, the State government and HC have to form their opinion regarding the shifting of the latter and submit a complete proposal to the Government of India. 

The Minister said the HC of A.P. had been functioning with its principal seat at Amaravati with effect from January 1, 2019 following a Presidential Order. Andhra Pradesh got its own HC after the bifurcation of the unified State of A.P. as per the A.P. Reorganisation Act, 2014.