Shimla, April 19 -- The Himachal Pradesh high court on Saturday upheld the Mandi deputy commissioner's decision to disqualify a gram panchayat pradhan for six years for concealing details of a pending criminal case in his nomination papers. "He has been declared disqualified not for the nature of offence involved in criminal case pending against him or for conviction or gravity of offence, but he has been declared disqualified for false declaration made in Nomination Form which must be taken seriously," ruled the division bench of justice Vivek Singh Thakur and justice Ranjan Sharma while dismissing a petition filed by Basant Lal. The petitioner challenged the Mandi DC's order, which barred him from contesting panchayat polls for six years after his election as pradhan was earlier set aside for deliberately concealing a pending criminal case. "....candidate contesting the Panchayat elections is obligated to comply with provisions of regulations framed by the Election Commission and further that it is a case where petitioner deliberately filed a false affidavit undertaking concealing the pendency of criminal case pending against him and concealment of that material fact per se was a valid ground to annul his elections," the order read. The petitioner, elected as gram panchayat pardhan in Mandi's Pagna in 2020, had not disclosed the pendency of a criminal case against him in his nomination form. His election was subsequently declared void by the sub-divisional pfficer (SDM, Civil), Karsog, in April 2022, on grounds of deliberate concealment of material information. The Mandi DC, in February 2025, further ordered his disqualification for six years from contesting panchayat polls. Dismissing the petition, HC clarified that the legislative intent behind prescribing a six-year disqualification is to ensure that a disqualified candidate remains ineligible for at least one full election cycle, given the five-year tenure of panchayati raj institutions....