- The President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind on December 26, 2018 ordered the separation of the “common” Hyderabad High Court into the separate High Courts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The order came after a Supreme Court order to the Centre to notify the bifurcation of the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana High Courts by January 1, 2019.
- The presidential notification was issued under Article 214 of the Constitution, which provides for a High Court for each State.
- Both High courts will function separately from January 1, 2019.
- The principal seat of the Andhra Pradesh High Court is Amaravati, the capital of the State. 16 HC judges, including Justice Ramesh Ranganathan, who is now the Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court, shall become judges of the Andhra Pradesh High Court from January 1, 2019.
- The High Court in Hyderabad will function separately as the High Court of the State of Telangana which will have a sanctioned strength of 10 judges.
- Since the bifurcation of the state on June 2, 2014, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have had a common high court at Hyderabad, which is alto the capital of Telangana. With the creation of the new high court at Amravati, the country now has 25 high courts. The Centre had constituted three new High Courts in the northeast — Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura in January 2013.
