The Queens principal removed from his post after costing taxpayers $830,000 in lawsuit settlements is suing for reinstatement — saying the city made “nuisance” payouts to quickly dispense with the claims before even verifying if they were true.

Former John Bowne HS head Howard Kwait — who was reassigned to a central office in May — says he was responsible for raising the school’s graduation rate from 46 percent to 76 over 12 years.

“Petitioner challenged the JBHS status quo, and culture of pedagogical failure, to yield both quantitative and qualitative results,” Kwait says in his new suit.

“New York City, by contrast, reputedly paid settlements without performing the equally difficult task of challenging plaintiffs as petitioner did in JBHS,” he adds.

Kwait, 41, claims the city’s lawyers “unilaterally settled cases with ‘nuisance’ monies in lieu of establishing and affecting due diligence as NYC elected not to even depose plaintiffs in litigation against the city and petitioner.”

But an attorney for one of the plaintiffs who sued Kwait said the sizable settlements were not nuisance amounts.

“The normal range of a person who’s falsely arrested and spends a night in the holding pen awaiting arraignment in the City of New York is anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000,” said attorney Ravi Batra.

“The case was settled for $225,000, so that’s not nuisance value.”

Batra scored the $225,000 payout for former John Bowne honors student Krittika Biswas in 2014. Biswas’ Manhattan federal suit said Kwait demanded her suspension from school and arrest after she was falsely accused of cyberbullying.

But Batra said someone else sent the e-mails — and both a lower-court judge and appeals court refused to toss her case.

He called Kwait “a threat to public safety.”

Kwait’s attorney, Roger Bennett Adler, said his client was not directly involved in suspending Biswas or having her arrested.

The city also coughed up more than $500,000 to settle sexual-harassment claims against Kwait by four women, including guidance counselor Lauren Prettitore who claimed he solicited her and female colleagues for threesomes.

Education Department spokesman Doug Cohen said, “There’s no place for sexual harassment at the DOE, and we’re going to hold those who engage in misconduct accountable. We stand by the decision to reassign Mr. Kwait.”