Pune Divisional Commissioner Quashes Externment Orders Against Farmer Siblings in Sangli Land Dispute

Pune/Sangli, 5th August 2026: In a significant ruling, the Divisional Commissioner, Pune, has set aside the externment orders issued against a farmer brother and sister from the Lohar community in Tondoli village of Kadegaon taluka in Sangli district. The externment proceedings had arisen from a long-standing dispute over their ancestral agricultural land.

Allowing both appeals, the Divisional Commissioner quashed the externment orders passed by the Sub-Divisional Officer, Kadegaon, holding that the mandatory legal requirements for invoking such an extraordinary preventive measure had not been met.

The appellants, Dnyaneshwar Baban Pawar and Kavita Shankar Lohar, were represented by Adv. Vijay Borse, who made detailed legal submissions before the appellate authority.

According to the appeals, the appellants are marginal farmers belonging to the Lohar community. They alleged that influential persons in the village had attempted to illegally take possession of their ancestral agricultural land.

After approaching senior authorities over the alleged inaction of the local police, several criminal cases were registered against them, eventually leading to the externment proceedings. The appellants further contended that the underlying dispute was essentially civil in nature but had been given a criminal colour.
During the hearing, Adv. Borse argued that most of the criminal cases registered against the appellants arose from the same land dispute and had no direct nexus with public order. Relying on various Supreme Court judgments, he submitted that externment is an exceptional preventive measure that should be invoked only as a last resort.

In its detailed order, the Divisional Commissioner observed that the majority of the cases against the appellants stemmed from the same land dispute and largely involved allegations of simple hurt or offences connected with the property dispute. The authority found no substantial material to demonstrate that the appellants posed a serious threat to public peace or public order.

The order further noted that the authorities had failed to consider less restrictive preventive measures before resorting to externment. It specifically observed that proceedings relating to the land dispute could have been initiated under Section 145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, or the corresponding provision under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), but no such consideration was reflected in the impugned order.

The Divisional Commissioner also criticised the mechanical reliance placed on the police report, observing that the externment order lacked an independent assessment of the facts and failed to record adequate reasons justifying such a drastic action.

One of the appellants, Kavita Shankar Lohar, is the mother of a serving Indian Navy personnel and earns her livelihood through agriculture. It was argued that the externment had caused severe hardship and adversely affected the cultivation of her agricultural land. The Divisional Commissioner observed that such a drastic action against the mother of a serving naval personnel required strong and compelling legal justification, which was absent in the present case.

Considering these circumstances, the Divisional Commissioner allowed both appeals and set aside the externment orders passed by the Sub-Divisional Officer, Kadegaon.

The ruling is expected to serve as an important precedent, reiterating that civil disputes over ancestral property cannot, by themselves, justify the use of extraordinary preventive measures such as externment without strict compliance with legal requirements.

Following the decision, Adv. Vijay Borse said that converting a civil land dispute into criminal proceedings and invoking externment without sufficient legal basis is contrary to the fundamental principles of law. He added that the judgment would serve as valuable guidance in similar cases involving the misuse of preventive powers.