Patna High Court on Monday set aside the urban development department's order that had removed Patna Municipal Corporation deputy mayor Rup Narayan Mehta from his post.

Then urban development and housing department principal secretary Amrit Lal Meena had issued the order on October 30.

Mehta was removed on the charge of frequently abstaining himself from civic body meetings. He later challenged his removal in the high court, seeking quashing of the order.

On Monday, the bench of Justice Jyoti Saran set aside the order and ruled that only a minister in charge can remove the deputy mayor and not the principal secretary or any bureaucrat.

The court had earlier sought the government's reply clarifying whether the term "state government" would mean the minister in charge or whether power had been delegated to the principal secretary, urban development department, to dispose of such matter.

The petitioner's counsel, Jitendra Singh, had raised three points before the court. First, as after amendment of the Bihar Municipal Act 2007, in 2011, the word "divisional commissioner", as occurring in Section 25(5) of the Act, has been replaced with the word "government", the jurisdiction would shift to the minister in charge.

Second, in view of amendments to Section 44 of the Act, the state government can act against or remove a mayor or deputy mayor only on the recommendation of a Lok Prahari. The state is mandated to appoint a Lok Prahari to investigate charges of malpractices or any misdemeanour against mayor or deputy mayor.

The third point was that the words "meetings" and "sittings", occurring in Section 25(5) of the Act, would mean a meeting/sitting of the municipality and not of the empowered standing committee alone. The then principal secretary had alleged that Mehta did not participate in meetings of the empowered standing committee on five consecutive dates.

The court had directed the government to file a counter affidavit to the issues raised by the petitioner's counsel.

With Monday's order, newly elected deputy mayor Amravati Devi ceases to hold the post. The same high court bench had earlier held that any election to the post of deputy mayor of the PMC in the meanwhile would be subject to result of this writ petition.

Amrawati was elected new deputy mayor on November 30, defeating her rival Pinki Yadav by just two votes.