Three-capitals petitions infructuous now that Amaravati is Andhra’s capital by law, High Court says

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A view of the Andhra Pradesh High Court building at Nelapadu village capital area in Amaravati. | Photo Credit: V. Raju

More than 120 writ petitions filed against the “three capitals” plan for Andhra Pradesh have become infructuous, the Andhra Pradesh High Court said on Friday (September 25, 2026), now that Parliament has written Amaravati into the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, as the State’s sole capital.

A Division Bench led by Chief Justice Lisa Gill said that the grant of legal sanctity to Amaravati as the sole capital through the amendment to the Act rendered the batch of petitions, which came up for hearing on Friday, infructuous.

The Chief Justice said cases that might still be pending would be examined on November 20, taking note of the likelihood of the appeals filed in the Supreme Court against the High Court’s Amaravati judgment of March 3, 2022, being heard on November 29, 2026.

Representing the State, Advocate General Dammalapati Srinivas informed the Bench that the government had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in December 2024 expressing its commitment to complete the infrastructure projects in Amaravati in three years, and the works were going on at a brisk pace.

Counsel for some petitioners said it would be appropriate for the State government to settle the issue by withdrawing the Special Leave Petitions (SLPs) through which the previous YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government had contested the High Court verdict on the two laws facilitating three capitals: the AP Capital Region Development Authority Repeal Act and the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act, both of 2020.

A senior advocate sought the allotment of developed plots to all the beneficiaries of the Land Pooling Scheme (LPS) in a time-bound manner.

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

The then Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had proposed in December 2019 to develop Amaravati, Visakhapatnam and Kurnool as the legislative, executive and judicial capitals, which triggered widespread protests, mainly by farmers who had given their land under the LPS for the construction of Amaravati. In March 2022, a three-judge Bench of the High Court ruled that the capital could not be shifted out of Amaravati, holding that the State lacked the legislative competence to reverse the decision taken in 2014-15.

The YSRCP government challenged the High Court judgment by filing an SLP in the Supreme Court. Against this backdrop, Parliament passed the AP Reorganisation (Amendment) Act on April 2, 2026, giving statutory recognition to Amaravati as the only capital of the State, with effect from June 2, 2024, the day Hyderabad ceased to be the joint capital.

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