Telangana, AP high courts come into being

Separate high courts for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh came into being on Tuesday, more than four years after the latter was bifurcated to create the youngest state in the country.

Thottathil B Radhakrishnan took over as the first Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court in Hyderabad, while C Praveen Kumar took oath as the Acting Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court at Vijayawada.

The governor of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, E S L Narasimhan, administered the oath of office to them at separate functions. The chief ministers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, K Chandrashekar Rao and N Chandrababu Naidu respectively, were present at the functions in their states.

Since Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh on June 2, 2014, the high court in Hyderabad was functioning as the common high court for the two states.

President Ram Nath Kovind had on December 26 issued orders constituting a separate high court of Andhra Pradesh from January 1, 2019, with the principal seat to be located in Amaravati.

Radhakrishnan was sworn in as the chief justice of the Telangana High Court by Narasimhan at the Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad. Later, the chief justice administered oath to 12 judges of the high court in the court premises. Chandrashekar Rao was also present at the swearing-in of the other judges.

Naraimhan later reached Vijayawda near Amaravati and sworn in the Acting Chief Justice and 13 other judges.

The 13 judges sworn in are Justices S V Bhatt, A V Sesha Sai, M Seetharama Murti, U Durga Prasad Rao, T Sunil Chowdary, M Satyanarayana Murthy, G Shyam Prasad, J Uma Devi, N Balayogi, T Rajani, D V S S Somayajulu, K Vijaya Lakshmi and M Ganga Rao.

According to the president's order, Justice Ramesh Ranganathan, the chief justice of Uttarakhand High Court, will head the Andhra Pradesh High Court.

Naidu described it as a "historic day". "I am very happy legal administration is beginning in the state today. With the inauguration of the high court, the state bifurcation process has come to an end, barring distribution of assets."