He said the land sales predated his election so the State was really unseating him, and the Court pointed to what he did after taking office

Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad upheld the removal and next-term disqualification of the President of Nagar Panchayat Bilaigarh, holding that Section 41-A operates independently of an election challenge under Section 20.

A 68-year-old elected President of a Nagar Panchayat was removed from office by the State Government on 4 July 2026 and disqualified from holding the office for the next term. He challenged both the order and the manner in which the proceedings were conducted, arguing in substance that the grounds against him all concerned the sale of agricultural land before his election — so that the State, by using its removal power, was deciding his election by the back door. On 14 October 2026 the High Court dismissed the petition.

What the power actually is

Section 41-A of the Chhattisgarh Municipalities Act, 1961 permits the State Government to remove an elected President if, in its opinion, his continuance is not desirable in the public interest or in the interest of the Council, or if he is working against the provisions of the Act or any rules made under it. Section 20 of the same Act deals with the validity of an election. The head-note states the holding: the President can be removed under Section 41-A, and that power is distinct from the validity of an election under Section 20.

That distinction carried the case. The Court held that the grounds urged by the petitioner, individually as well as cumulatively, did not make out a case for exercise of the extraordinary jurisdiction, and that the exercise of power under Section 41-A in the facts could not be characterised as an indirect adjudication upon the validity of his election.

The material before the State

The case against the petitioner was not confined to the factum of the sale of agricultural land prior to his election. The material placed before the State Government disclosed allegations concerning the division of agricultural land into residential plots without obtaining the requisite colonizer licence and permissions, his alleged involvement in transactions undertaken in the name of himself and his wife, and the subsequent proceedings initiated by the competent municipal authority in that regard.

He was put to notice of the allegations and afforded opportunities to submit his explanation. In response, he did not dispute the factum of the sale transactions; he sought to justify them, contending that the lands were owned by him or his wife and that the transactions were individual sales made for family and financial requirements.

An order he never appealed

A second strand of material was the penalty. On proceedings initiated under Section 339(C) of the Act of 1961, the Chief Municipal Officer passed an order on 24 April 2026 imposing demand and penalty upon the petitioner in respect of the alleged violations. That order was never challenged by availing the statutory appellate remedy available to him.

The Court was careful about what it drew from that. It said it was not called upon in these proceedings to adjudicate the correctness of the demand or penalty. But the existence of the order, and the fact that it has not been displaced in any appellate proceeding, constitute relevant circumstances which were available for consideration by the State Government when it examined whether he should continue in elected office.

Agenda No. 1

The finding that most clearly separates the removal from an election dispute concerns what happened after he took office. After the order of 24 April 2026, the Chief Municipal Officer by communication dated 1 May 2026 sought to place the matter before the President-in-Council in relation to the consequential proceedings arising from non-compliance with the demand and penalty. The matter was placed as Agenda No. 1 before the Nagar Panchayat.

The specific finding emerging from the record is that when the proposal was placed before the petitioner in his capacity as President, he declined to sign it and did not permit the resolution to be proceeded with. Those subsequent acts, occurring during his tenure, are distinct from the antecedent land transactions and cannot be treated as matters relating exclusively to the validity of his election. They bear directly on his conduct after assumption of office and on the functioning of the Nagar Panchayat.

The material before the State Government therefore comprised not merely the alleged pre-election transactions but also his subsequent conduct in relation to the statutory proceedings arising from them and the functioning of the body he headed. The State was entitled to consider the cumulative effect of those circumstances in examining whether his continuance as President was desirable in the public interest or in the interest of the Council, and whether his conduct was inconsistent with the Act and the Rules.

The order

The Court found no sufficient ground to interfere with the order of 4 July 2026. The challenge to the Chief Municipal Officer's order of 24 April 2026 under Section 339(C) was also not entertained in the writ petition, particularly in view of the statutory appellate remedy available and the disputed factual issues involved in it.

The writ petition was dismissed and the removal and next-term disqualification upheld. The petitioner was left at liberty to avail the statutory appellate remedy against the order of 24 April 2026, and the Court directed that if he does so within the period prescribed by law, the appellate authority must consider it strictly in accordance with the statutory provisions and uninfluenced by any observation in the present order concerning matters requiring independent adjudication in the appeal. It clarified that its observations are for the purpose of deciding this writ petition alone, will not prejudice the petitioner in any statutory proceeding arising out of the penalty order, and are not to be construed as an independent adjudication upon title, the validity of individual sale transactions, or any other matter within the jurisdiction of the competent statutory authority. There was no order as to costs.

Mr Vivek Tankha appeared as senior advocate for the petitioner, assisted by Mr Sandeep Dubey and Mr Manas Bajpai; Mr Vivek Verma, Government Advocate, with Mr Dharmesh Shrivastava, Deputy Government Advocate, for the State; and Mr Manoj Paranjpe as senior advocate, assisted by Mr Sunil Sahu, for the sixth respondent, a ward resident described in the cause title as the local Mandal Adhyaksh of the Bharatiya Janata Party.