High court declines to interfere in shifting of Annamayya dist HQ to Madanapalle

Vijayawada: The high court on Wednesday declined to prevent the state govt from setting up offices at Madanapalle by shifting the district headquarters from Rayachoti. The court, however, asked the govt to file a counter affidavit.One B Venkata Narayana Reddy moved the high court with a public interest litigation (PIL), challenging the decision of the state govt to shift the headquarters of Annamayya district from Rayachoti to Madanapalle. Arguing on his behalf, C Sumon said the state govt issued a notification calling for objections for the creation of a new Madanapalle district. However, in the final notification, instead of creating a new district, Annamayya district headquarters was shifted from Rayachoti to Madanapalle.The govt ought to have called for objections for shifting the district headquarters, Sumon argued, adding that the decision was not in accordance with the AP District Formation Act of 1974. "The govt did not show any valid reasons for shifting the headquarters from Rayachoti, which was formed in 2022. Huge amount of public money was spent at Rayachoti to create infrastructure, which is likely to go waste if the already created infrastructure is not utilised, and fresh expenditure is incurred to shift the offices," Sumon stated, and sought to restrain the govt from shifting the offices from Rayachoti.The HC bench comprising Chief Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice Challa Gunaranjan observed that there was no statutory obligation on the part of the state govt to call for fresh objections in the case of a change in district headquarters. As these are administrative decisions of the govt, the court can not intervene in the matter, the bench said, adding that if the infrastructure is vacated in Rayachoti, the judiciary would take it for its use. Issuing notices to the state govt to file a counter, the court posted the matter for further hearing after four weeks.