July 28, 2026 (10) ARDR WPA 18617 of 2026 Kalpana Chowdhury Vs. The State of West Bengal & ors. Adv. Tanmoy Chatterjee, Adv. Joy Laha, …for the petitioner. Adv. Samitendra Narayan Datta, Adv. Vaibhav Prakash, …for the State. Affidavit of service filed by the petitioner is taken on record. The petitioner who is the Upa Pradhan of Badrabad Gram Panchayat has assailed the notice of meeting issued by the Prescribed Authority on 17th July, 2026 fixing 29th July, 2026 for removal of the Pradhan and the Upa Pradhan at 12.00 noon and 2.00 pm. respectively. Referring to Form 1E of The West Bengal Panchayat (Constitution) Rules, 1975, learned counsel submits that the meeting convened for removal of the Pradhan/Upa Pradhan should conform to Form IE of the rules which does not provide for a single notice for removal of both the entities. The notice impugned has added a new column “designation” which is beyond the scope of Form IE and is therefore bad in law. Learned counsel has placed reliance on the authority in Mihir Mondal and Others reported in 1994 SCC OnLine Cal 62 in support of his contention. Learned counsel for the State denies and disputes the contention of the petitioner and submits that the notice 2 has been issued by the Prescribed Authority in terms of the relevant law/rules and needs to be affirmed. True, the column “designation” does not find place in Form IE of the Rules of 1975. Since two meeting have been fixed by issuance of a single notice, the column “designation” was inserted by the Prescribed Authority to indicate the agenda of the meetings unambiguously. Such insertion may at best be termed as a technical deviation and does not render the notice invalid. By an order passed on 1st July, 2026 in WPA 12171 of 2026, this Court directed the Prescribed Authority to treat the date of communication of the order as the date of submission of the no confidence motion and take the proceeding to its logical conclusion in terms of the time frame laid down under Section 12 of The West Bengal Panchayat Act, 1973. Pursuant to the said order the Prescribed Authority issued the notice impugned and convened separate meetings on 29th July, 2026 for removal of the Pradhan at 12.00 noon and removal of the Upa Pradhan/petitioner herein at 2.00 pm. The authority relied upon by the petitioner deals with a similar situation as in the present case and observes that Sections 12 and 16 of the Act of 1973 do not contemplate removal of the Pradhan and Upa Pradhan in one meeting and two separate meetings are required to be held for the said purpose upon two separate notices being given in support thereof. It is a fact that in order to convene two separate meetings, two separate notices are normally issued. What is important is that two separate meetings are 3 required to be held for removal of the Pradhan and Upa Pradhan and the same cannot be done in a single meeting. In the case in hand, two separate meetings have been called by the Prescribed Authority for removal of the Pradhan and the Upa Pradhan. Though the date of the meetings is same, the timings are different. In usual course, the Prescribed Authority ought to have issued two separate notices for the meetings. But there is no bar under the Act in issuing a single notice for removal of the Pradhan and Upa Pradhan provided separate meetings are convened for the purpose. The authority relied upon by the petitioner has laid emphasis on holding two separate meetings and issuance of two separate notices is the usual prerequisite recorded therein. In view of the above, this Court is inclined to hold that a single notice issued for convening two separate meetings for removal of the Pradhan and Upa Pradhan does not suffer from any illegality or irregularity. The writ petition is devoid of any merit and is accordingly dismissed. There shall however, be no order as to costs. Since no affidavit is invited, the allegations contained in the petition are deemed not to have been admitted. Urgent certified website copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties upon compliance with all requisite formalities. (Suvra Ghosh, J.)