HYDERABAD: Andhra Pradesh government may soon try to impound the assets of Opposition YSR Congress’ president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy through the Special Courts Act 2016, approved by the President Pranab Mukherjee recently, claimed at recovering ill-gotten assets of economic offenders.Accusing the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) of bypassing prevailing laws of natural justice to settle political scores, the YSR Congress is preparing to contest the ill-use of the new Act, which it says is applicable prospectively, but not retrospectively.For the record, Andhra is not the first state to bring in a law for constitution of special courts aimed at disposing of corruption cases and attaching ill-gotten assets -- Odisha and Bihar had enacted similar laws.“It was part of the assurance made by TDP in its election manifesto to recover assets worth thousands of crores acquired illegally by the government servants and people’s representatives. The new Act enables the government to avert the prolonged process involved in seizing and auctioning the assets earned through corrupt and ill-gotten ways,” said Cherukuri Kutumba Rao, vice chairman of Andhra Pradesh State Planning Board.“The Act helps us expedite probe into several economic offences that were unearthed earlier where the trials went on for years. It can also be applied to the economic offences of Jagan and helps the government identify and confiscate assets that couldn’t be uncovered by the investigating agencies earlier,” he said.Contesting the validity of the new Act brought in by the AP government, YSR Congress senior leader and Rajya Sabha member Venumbaka Vijay Sai Reddy said, “Any law that is enacted by the Assembly or the Parliament can only be prospective and cannot be retrospective so far as criminal cases are concerned. Also, the CBI investigation was ordered by the AP High Court under Criminal Procedures Code, Indian Penal Code, Prevention of Corruption Act and Money Laundering Act. Hence, there cannot be any subsequent legislation which can supercede the order passed by the AP High Court.”Reddy, who is one of the co-accused in the charge sheets filed against Jagan, told ET that only the CBI and Enforcement Directorate will have jurisdiction over the cases, and no other agencies. “There cannot be two trials in respect of the same offence and there cannot be another trial under the guise of a different Act.”Accusing the TDP government of resorting to political vendetta, YSR Congress spokesperson Ambati Rambabu said their party will contest the applicability of the AP Special Courts Act 2016 in legal and constitutional forums. “Even while the trial is going on in the court, the TDP government is trying to settle political scores by targeting the assets of Jagan, especially Sakshi newspaper and Sakshi TV channel, which have been exposing the rampant corruption of Chandrababu Naidu led government and its failures.”Interestingly, the Opposition members had stayed away from the session of Assembly in September last year when the ruling TDP-BJP combine passed the AP Special Courts Bill. The Opposition members had also staged a walkout protesting against the ruling party’s move to bunch several bills on a single day without providing them adequate time to study the bills.However, the ruling TDP lawmakers led by the legislative affairs minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu argued that the state had no powers to attach properties of economic offenders under the existing Prevention of Corruption Act and that a special Act was required to recover Rs 43,000 crore of ill-gotten assets of Jagan as pointed out by the investigating agencies in 11 charge sheets.