Andhra Pradesh: High court returns ‘home’ to Guntur after 62 years

VIJAYAWADA: It’s a homecoming for the high court to Amaravati. The high court of erstwhile Andhra state functioned from Guntur for three years from 1954, though the state capital was in Kurnool. The high court is set to return to Amaravati (Vijayawada-Guntur region) on New Year day after a gap of 62 years.
The high court of Andhra state at Guntur was shifted to Hyderabad and merged with the Hyderabad state high court to form Andhra Pradesh high court on November 1, 1956.Since then, the high court has been functioning from Hyderabad. The demand for a high court bench in Vijayawada-Guntur has been pending all these years.
The new AP high court has been allocated 14 judges while the Andhra high court at Guntur had seven judges.
Though Andhra state was carved out of Madras state on October 1, 1953, the high court in Madras (Chennai) continued to be the common high court till a separate court for Andhra state was set up on July 5, 1954. There was hectic political activity before the court was set up in Guntur. It was under an unwritten pact — popularly known as Sri Bagh pact — on November 16, 1937, among leaders of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema that the high court was set up in Guntur to strike a political balance between the two regions. Kurnool in Rayalaseema got the state capital.
Old timers recall that like in the AP Reorganisation Act of 2014, the Andhra State Act of 1953 did not specify where the high court or capital should be located. The 1953 Act too made several promises to the state.
The choice of location of high court was left to the Andhra government, though the Centre made it clear that it should be located within Andhra territory (not in Tamil Nadu). Initially, political leaders, as their counterparts now, wanted the high court to function from Madras.
Archival records show that after hectic deliberations, Kurnool was voted as the state capital by a majority of 26 votes over Vijayawada. And to pacify the anger of people in Vijayawada-Guntur, the high court was set up. Incidentally, Amaravati, where the new high court will be located, falls in Guntur district.
As agitations for a high court bench fell on deaf years for decades, then MP from Vijayawada, Lagadapati Rajagopal, moved a private member’s Bill in the Lok Sabha in 2007 seeking a permanent bench in Vijayawada.