Three Capitals Petitions Infructuous, Amaravati Sole Capital by Law: A.P. High Court

A full Bench of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh has observed that the batch of writ petitions challenging the proposed 'three capitals' has been rendered infructuous, following the grant of legal sanctity to Amaravati as the State's sole capital through an amendment to the A.P. Reorganisation Act of 2014.

The Bench, led by Chief Justice Lisa Gill and comprising Justices Ninala Jayasurya and B.S. Bhanumathi, took up the matters on September 25. Justice Gill said issues that might still remain pending would be examined on November 20, while noting the likelihood that appeals filed in the Supreme Court against the High Court's 'Amaravati judgment' of March 3, 2022, would be heard on November 29.

Appearing for the State, Advocate-General Dammalapati Srinivas told the court that the government had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in December 2024, expressing its commitment to complete the infrastructure projects in Amaravati within three years. He said the works were progressing at a brisk pace and urged the court to close the writ petitions after recording these facts.

Counsel for some petitioners argued that the government should settle the matter conclusively by withdrawing the Special Leave Petition filed by the previous YSR Congress Party government in the Supreme Court against the High Court's adverse judgment on the legislations that facilitated three capitals — the A.P. Capital Region Development Authority Repeal Act and the A.P. Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act, both of 2020.

Senior advocate Unnam Muralidhar Rao contended that the matters should remain open, pointing out that capital works were incomplete and that farmers who had parted with their land had not yet received developed plots. When the Bench noted that it could not set fresh deadlines because the Supreme Court had stayed the timelines, he responded that the stay covered only infrastructure deadlines and did not address the return of developed plots to farmers.

Senior counsel Jandhyala Ravi Sankar said more than 120 petitions had been filed in the High Court against the proposed three capitals, and that his prayer for a continuous mandamus was conceded in the impugned judgment. The matters under review, he said, were largely procedural, as the larger question of the capital had already been decided on merits.

The dispute traces back to December 2019, when the then Chief Minister, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, proposed developing Amaravati, Visakhapatnam and Kurnool as the Legislative, Executive and Judicial capitals. The proposal triggered widespread protests, mainly by farmers who had given their land under the Land Pooling Scheme for the construction of Amaravati. The YSRCP government subsequently challenged the High Court judgment through a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court. Against this backdrop, Parliament passed the A.P. Reorganisation (Amendment) Act in April 2026, giving statutory recognition to Amaravati as the only capital of Andhra Pradesh.