The Andhra Pradesh government has moved the Supreme Court challenging the High Court’s order rejecting YSRC government’s plans to have three state capitals.

In March, the High Court had ordered that the Amaravati Masterplan be implemented and all development activities be continued in the region in a setback to the Jagan Mohan Reddy government’s plans to have three capitals.

A three-member division bench of the High Court, headed by Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, ruled that the state government does not have legislative competence to pass any resolution or law for change of capital or bifurcating or trifurcating the capital city.

After coming to power in 2019, the YSRC-led Andhra Pradesh government had dropped the plan to develop Amaravati as the capital city and decided to have three capitals — Amaravati, Visakhapatnam, and Kurnool.

The bench ordered that the government submit an affidavit in six months on the progress of the development works in Amaravati.

The division bench, also comprising justices M Satyanarayana Murthy and DVSS Somayajulu, delivered the order on a batch of petitions filed by the farmers opposing the Jagan Mohan Reddy government’s plan to create three new capitals for the state, PTI reported.