Andhra 3-capitals case sees curious run, CJI recuses self

NEW DELHI: A detailed legal opinion given by him as a senior advocate on the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill prompted Chief Justice U U Lalit on Tuesday to recuse himself from hearing appeals filed by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government challenging an AP high court verdict quashing its ‘three-capital’ scheme.
When the appeals, which witnessed a curious course of listing in the Supreme Court, came up for hearing before CJI Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi, senior advocate C A Sundaram, appearing for farmers agitating against the three-capital scheme, drew the CJI’s attention to his 30-page detailed legal opinion of January 1, 2014, on the bill.
“I was not aware,” the CJI said before taking a copy of his opinion from Sundaram and said the appeals would now be heard by a bench that he will not be part of.
The detailed opinion may have slipped the CJI’s mind, but just two years ago he had recused himself from hearing pleas seeking action against the Andhra CM for levelling allegations against the judiciary. “I have difficulties as I had represented one of the parties as a lawyer,” he had said.
After bifurcation of the state, AP had shifted its capital to Amaravati from the joint capital in Hyderabad much ahead of the 10-year deadline. When the Reddy government pushed for a three-capital scheme in 2020, first through ordinances and then through legislations, farmers moved the HC challenging the government’s decision to have an executive capital at Visakhapatnam, a legislative capital at Amaravati and a judicial capital at Kurnool.
When the HC was hearing the appeals, the state repealed the laws for three capitals. But the HC on March 22 quashed the Acts on several grounds, including legislative competence. The state government filed an appeal in October.
A few private parties had filed appeals in July in the SC against the HC verdict. As the matter related to a subject category exclusively dealt by the CJI, the Registry put up a note before then CJI N V Ramana, who on August 5 assigned the appeals to a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath. All of them would go on to become CJIs in future.
When the matter was mentioned before then CJI Ramana for early hearing, he had informed the lawyers about the case being assigned to a three-judge bench headed by Justice Khanna who, sources said, told registry officials that there was no urgency in the matter and that it should be listed in the normal course.
The appeals were suddenly listed on October 18 for hearing, not before the earlier assigned bench but before one led by CJI Lalit, who took oath on August 27. On that day, the hearing was adjourned to November 21, much beyond CJI Lalit’s retirement on November 8. The AP government circulated a letter on October 20 for early hearing and the appeals were promptly listed for hearing on November 1.