Visakhapatnam: Expressing displeasure over the recommendations in the Sivaramakrishnan committee report that High Court in Andhra Pradesh state should be located along with the Assembly and Secretariat and Vizag is second option for location of High Court, the legal fraternity is raising the pitch of its long standing demand of having the High Court in Vizag city because Vizag is a prominent and congenial place among other cities in AP. Also Vizag is an industrial city and has the necessary infrastructure for HC.
Visakhapatnam Bar Association (VBA), is the largest bar association in AP with rich history, has over 5,000 advocates and also home to several law colleges and universities, including noted Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University.
“We we requested Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu recently for setting up the HC only in Vizag. There is no such rule that HC should be located in the capital city,” said Janapareddy Prithvi Raj, president of VBA. “We will be organising a round table meeting in Vizag soon to push our demand,” he added.
Vizag seems to be losing on various fronts as fallout of bifurcation. Though politicians are promising decentralised development, it seems to be taking away all development activities to other places citing that capital city should house all the key institutions. It is not essential that the HC should be located in the capital city.
In Kerala, Rajasthan, MP, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and UP the HCs were located in separate cities. Agitations for HC bench in Vizag started in 1993 and now lobbying for setting up HC will gain momentum stated several members of VBC.
Not only advocates but also common people in the region will benefit if HC is set up in Vizag as the High Court has extraordinary writ jurisdictions and also powers under Article 226 and 227 of Constitution of India said Kuppili Muralidhar, president of Forum of Legal Professionals.
HC is not only a judicial entity. There are several tribunals and commissions which should be regarded as a part of the judicial governance system for the state so that various companies can file petition in HC only. Irrespective of the report, city advocates would bat for location of HC in Vizag, he added.
