The central government has announced the formation of a new high court for the state of Andhra Pradesh. The high court will be named as High Court of Andhra Pradesh, which will start functioning from 1st January 2019. The new high court will be located at Amaravati, the newly built capital city of Andhra Pradesh.
The notification issued by the government says:
“In pursuance of article 214 of the Constitution and the Order issued by the Supreme Court of India and in exercise of powers conferred under clause (a) of sub-section (1) of section 30, sub-section (1) of section 31 and sub-section (2) of section 31 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, the President hereby constitutes a separate High Court for the State of Andhra Pradesh, namely,the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, from the 1st day of January, 2019 with the principal seat of such High Court at Amaravati in the State of Andhra Pradesh and the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad shall become the High Court for the State of Telangana.”
Following the split of Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, its capital city Hyderabad was included in Telangana. Therefore, entire administrative machinery had to be created for Andhra Pradesh from scratch, and this new high court is part of that process.
The government has also transferred 16 judges from the high court at Hyderabad to the newly formed Andhra Pradesh High Court, while remaining 10 judges will become the judges of the high court for the Telangana state. This will be the 25th High Court in the country.
Last month, the Supreme Court had given the go-ahead for the formation of a new high court for Andhra Pradesh. The court had said that since all the requirements have been fulfilled, there is no embargo for the competent authority to issue a notification bifurcating the courts into the High Court of Telangana and High Court of Andhra Pradesh respectively. The court’s decision came after the green signal from an inspection committee.
In Amaravati, a very big complex known as Justice City is under construction, where the High Court and subordinate courts and even some tribunals would be accommodated. There is also a provision for construction of residential complexes for the judges of the High Court and judicial officers of the subordinate courts in the Justice City. Till those constructions are completed, the state government will hire vilas for residences of the judges, while the high court will function from a makeshift building, the govt had informed the Supreme Court.