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AP High Court Quashes FIR Against Chandrababu Naidu in Amaravati Land Pooling Case
The
has quashed the criminal proceedings against former Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu and former Minister for Municipal Administration Ponguru Narayana in connection with the Amaravati Capital City Land Pooling Scheme. The court, exercising its
under
, held that the FIR in Crime No.5/2021 was
"vitiated by
and
"
and failed to disclose any
against either petitioner.
Justice Dr. Y. Lakshmana Rao, in a detailed common order pronounced on , quashed the FIR registered by the Police Station, Amaravathi, invoking Sections 166, 167, 217, and 120-B of the , along with provisions of the , and .
Seeds of a Capital City
The case traces its origins to the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh under the , which left the residuary state without a capital after Hyderabad was allotted to Telangana. Parliament mandated the formation of an under , headed by Sri Sivaramakrishnan, which conducted extensive public consultations across eleven districts and received over 4,728 written suggestions before identifying the Guntur-Vijayawada region as the preferred location.
The state Cabinet formally resolved to establish the capital in this area on
, and the Legislative Assembly unanimously endorsed the decision three days later. This democratic imprimatur, the court noted, would later prove central to the petitioners' defence — any act performed in pursuance of a unanimous legislative resolution could not be
"branded as malicious, conspiratorial, or criminal in character."
The
came into force on
, and within sixty days, more than 25,000 farmers voluntarily entered into land pooling agreements covering over 30,000 acres — a rate of voluntary participation the court described as
"unparalleled anywhere in the world."
G.O.Ms.No.41, issued on
, amended Rule 5(2) of the 2015 Rules to reclassify certain categories of assigned lands within the pooling framework.
The MLA's Complaint
The FIR was registered on , following a complaint by Alla Rama Krishna Reddy, then MLA of Mangalagiri constituency, who alleged that influential persons from the then-government had cheated innocent peasants, many belonging to SC/ST and weaker sections, by fraudulently acquiring their lands. The complaint alleged that G.O.Ms.No.41 was crafted to legitimize transactions involving assigned and encroached lands, and that confidential information about the capital's location was misused.
Significantly, the court noted that no villager or landowner had approached any forum during the five years between the transactions (2015-2016) and the filing of the complaint in
.
"The enthusiasm of the de-facto complainant was not that of a public-spirited citizen but the calculated enterprise of a political rival, redolent of
,"
the court observed.
Defending the Sovereign Act of Governance
Senior counsel , appearing for Naidu, and , appearing for Ponguru Narayana, argued that the prosecution sought to criminalize the . They maintained that G.O.Ms.No.41 was issued under the statutory rule-making power conferred by , had never been challenged or declared invalid, and continued to enjoy the . Both counsel invoked the under , which expressly prohibits prosecution for acts done in pursuance of the Act or its rules.
The State and the de-facto complainant countered that the investigation had revealed a
"deep-rooted, premeditated, and meticulously orchestrated
of extraordinary magnitude,"
alleging that funds amounting to ₹18.1 crores were routed through intermediaries to acquire assigned lands in the names of relatives and associates of the accused. The prosecution pointed to recorded conversations and statements from IAS officers as evidence of wrongdoing.
Where Policy Ends and Crime Begins
The High Court's analysis systematically dismantled the prosecution's case, finding that each penal provision invoked in the FIR lacked its essential ingredients. The court held that Sections 166 and 217 of the IPC require knowing disobedience of a legal direction — yet the petitioners acted in compliance with G.O.Ms.No.41, a subsisting government order never declared invalid.
"A public servant acting under and in accordance with a legally operative Government Order is, in law, obeying the law and not disobeying it,"
the court reasoned.
On the charge of
under Section 120-B, the court found a
"complete absence of any allegation disclosing an agreement inter se the accused persons, any meeting of minds directed towards an unlawful objective, or any overt act undertaken in pursuance of such an agreement."
The court warned against the
"dangerous theory - that governance equals conspiracy,"
holding that
"policy-making cannot be equated with conspiracy."
The invocation of
was similarly rejected — the FIR identified no specific SC/ST victim, no wrongful dispossession, and no caste-based intent. The court noted that the land reconstitution process applied
"uniformly, non-discriminatory, and applicable across all categories without singling out members of Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes."
Statutory Shields and Political Shadows
The court reaffirmed two independent statutory bars to prosecution:
and
. It held that the bar under Section 146 is
"
,"
shielding acts done in pursuance of the Act or its rules. The court also observed that the successor government, through the legislation repealing the
, had expressly saved all actions taken under the Act — a circumstance the court found
"fatal to the prosecution's own case, since a government does not save that which it regards as illegal."
On the broader question of political motivation, the court observed:
"The registration of criminal cases against opposition leaders by ruling party governments, and vice versa, has become a disturbing feature of Indian politics."
The court found the timing of the FIR — registered only after a change of government — alongside the absence of any aggrieved victim, pointed
"unmistakably to the mala fide character of the entire proceeding."
The Verdict
The High Court allowed both criminal petitions and quashed the proceedings in Crime No.5/2021
"in their entirety as against both petitioners."
The court observed that the case fell squarely within multiple categories identified in the landmark
decision in
, including absence of , inherently improbable allegations, and express legal bar to prosecution.
The judgment also noted that two related FIRs — Crime Nos. 14 and 15 of 2020, involving similar allegations against 34 persons — had already been closed as "" by the , in .
As the court concluded, invoking the spirit of the Bhagavad Gita:
"Yato dharmastato jayah"
—
"Where there is dharma, there is victory. Justice, when upheld, triumphs overall."
