Andhra Pradesh gets new HC; to start functioning from Jan 1

Come New Year, Andhra Pradesh will have a separate high court which will function from Amravati, the new capital of the state, as President Ram Nath Kovind Wednesday issued orders to this effect.

Since the bifurcation of the state on June 2, 2014, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have had a common high court at Hyderabad, the latter's capital city.

With the creation of the new high court, the country now has 25 high courts.

"...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," said the order.

According to the order, Justice Ramesh Ranganathan, who is at present the Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court, will head the new high court.

In effect, he will be the first chief justice of the latest high court.

It will have 15 judges besides the chief justice.

Ten judges, who were part of the common high court, will now be the judges of the Telangana High Court, the order said.

Hyderabad, which was the capital of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, is now part of Telangana and has become its capital.

The existing high court is located at Hyderabad and it would be housing the High Court of Telangana.

As far as Andhra Pradesh is concerned, it has decided to create the new city of Amaravati which is going to be the capital of the state and the new high court of Andhra Pradesh would be located there, the notification said.

In November, a Supreme Court bench had given its go ahead for the issuance of notification for the creation of the new high court.

The bench 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.

"We expect such a notification to be issued by January 1, 2019 so that the two high courts start functioning separately, and the High Court of Andhra Pradesh also starts functioning in the new building at the earliest," the bench had said.

Andhra Pradesh had been pressing for a separate high court, but the Centre had maintained that till the time the infrastructure was not ready, it was not feasible to create a separate high court.

The issue had also reached the apex court.

Justice R Subhash Reddy, who was a judge of the common high court of the two states and was elevated to the Supreme Court, has exercised the option for allocation to the Telangana High Court, the notification added.