It appears to be a game of one-upmanship between the YSR Congress party government and the Amaravati Parirakshana Samithi in the case over three capitals in the Supreme Court.
The special leave petition (SLP) filed by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government originally came up for hearing in the Supreme Court before the Chief Justice of India bench on November 1.
Since CJI U U Lalit was hearing the petition, everybody was expecting that there would be a favourable order for the government either in the form of stay or quashing of Amaravati farmers’ petition.
But the counsel of Amaravati farmers cleverly brought before the bench the issue of Justice Lalit arguing for Jagan in the past. This landed the CJI in an embarrassing situation and he had to recuse himself from the case.
He said the case would be taken up only by a new bench that would be constituted later. He even refused to fix the timing for the next hearing.
It was a big relief for Amaravati farmers, as they knew they won’t get a favourable order as long as Lalit is there as the CJI. So, they thought it would take at least a week’s time to constitute a new bench and in the meantime, Lalit would retire, making way for Justice Chandrachud as the new CJI.
But on Thursday, CJI Lalit constituted a new bench with Justice K M Joseph and Justice Hrishkesh Roy and referred all the cases of Amaravati to this bench. All the other cases related to Amaravati, bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and implementation of promises made in AP Reorganisation Act, were also referred to this bench.
As per the schedule, the new bench is scheduled to take up the Amaravati issue on November 14, by which time Justice Lalit would step down and Justice Chandrachud would be the new CJI.
But on Thursday night, everything underwent sudden change. The Amaravati petitions, including the SLP, was included in the cause list of the Supreme Court to be heard on Friday.
Apparently, the Jagan government made a request that the SLP on Amaravati be separated from the other petitions and be heard expeditiously. One doesn’t know what had happened in the registry of the Supreme Court, the issue has now been listed for Friday.
It appears the Jagan government has moved all the pawns to see that the SLP comes up for hearing on Friday, so that it can get a stay order on the state high court judgement of March 3 on Amaravati, when Justice Lalit continues as CJI.
It remains to be seen what the lawyers of Amaravati farmers would do now. If the new bench gives a stay order, all their efforts would go waste now.