The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the operation of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation (Amendment) Act, 2014, providing for transferring villages in seven mandals of Telangana State to the State of AP.

A Bench of Justices S.J. Mukhopadhaya and S.A. Bobde told senior counsel A. Sudarshana Reddy, appearing for petitioner, advocate M. Rajender Reddy, challenging the law, that in reorganisation of States matter “no stay is granted.”

The bench, however, issued notice to the Centre and AP government seeking their response and directed the matter to be tagged with batch of petitions challenging the main reorganisation Act.

The petitioner said the villages with tribal population which were sought to be ceded to AP would deprive tribal people of their fundamental right. The law affects the livelihood of tribal people, who constituted 90 per cent of the population of the affected areas. The amendment Act is violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution and contrary to the Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation and the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act, he said.

Mr. Reddy said the reason for such transfer was that these areas would be submerged in the event of completion of Polavaram project. He said when submergence and acquisition of lands in Odhisa and Chhattisgarh were issues pending in the apex court, the amendment Act deprives tribal people of their social, political and cultural rights by ousting them from their habitat. He prayed for declaring the law as unconstitutional and an interim stay of its operation.