From the very first day of 2019, Andhra Pradesh will have its own High Court which will function from Amravati, the new capital of the state.
After several years of delay, President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday issued a gazette notification ordering the setting up of a separate High Court in Amravati.
Since the state was bifurcated between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on June 2, 2014, both the states were sharing a common High Court, situated at Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana.
The notification ordered that the from January 1, 2019, the separate High Court in Amravati will be called the ‘High Court of Andhra Pradesh’ and the previous High Court in Hyderabad will be called the ‘High Court of Telangana.’
It also ruled that Justice Ramesh Ranganathan currently serving as the Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court will head the new high court in Amravati. Thus, he will be the first Chief Justice of the latest High Court of the country. The High Court of Andhra Pradesh will have 15 judges besides the Chief Justice.
Ten judges of the common High Court will now serve in the High Court of Telangana.
Andhra Pradesh had been pressing for a separate high court for several years, but the central government claimed that the infrastructure was not ready so it was not feasible to create a separate high court.
The issue reached the Supreme Court which in November this year gave a nod to the Andhra Pradesh government to issue a notification in the matter so that a separate high court in Amaravati can start functioning in the new building by the earliest.
With the creation of this new High Court, the country now has 25 High Courts.