Hyderabad: The petitioners contended that the bifurcation of the state was illegal and unconstitutional and the Centre introduced the Bill even though it was rejected by the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly and Council.
Referring to the provision under the Bill for a common capital for Telangana and AP for 10 years, the petitioners argued that there was no such provision in the Constitution. They said that the President could have acted independently as the Bill was rejected by the AP Assembly.
Citing the powers vested under Article 3 of the Constitution, the petitioners argued that Article 3, particularly the Vth Amendment Act, 1955, violated not only the basic structure of the Constitution but also its preamble.
Earlier, the Centre had to elicit the views of the Legislature of the concerned state either to divide or to merge it with another state from the proposal stage. This was amended through the Vth Amendment Act, 1955 to hijack the views of the state’s majority. The bench said that they will decide in the next hearing whether to refer the matter to the Constitution bench as many of the averments were regarding the powers vested in the Centre under the Constitution.
Other petitioners are Congress MPs Rayapati Sambasiva Rao and Vundavalli Arun Kumar, Telugu Desam MP C.M. Ramesh, YSR Congress MP Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy, BJP leader Raghu Rama Krishna Raju, Seemandhra Advocates’ JAC, Karnataka Telugu Praia Samiti, former MLA Adusumilli Jayaprakash and M.L. Sharma, an SC advocate, Pendurthi Venkatesh, Rashtriya Praia Congress (Secular), M. Ramakrishna, K. Prabhakar Raju, K. Venkata Ramana Chary, Muppala Subba Rao and others.
They challenged the Centre’s decision to bifurcate AP to create the state of Telangana.
