KOLKATA: Acting Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya walked out of a courtroom when a petitioner's lawyers pointed out that the chair he was sitting on had an incorrect representation of the national emblem. The petition he had been hearing at that time, incidentally, was about faulty national emblems engraved in several offices of the state and the Centre.

On Friday, acting Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice Prasenjit Mondal were hearing a PIL filed by Kamal Dey, editor and publisher of a Bengali periodical. Dey had submitted that the Ashok Chakra was being used without the writing Satyameva Jayate, which is integral to the emblem. In fact, a division Bench of the high court had earlier held that the national emblem should have the writing below under the Prevention of Insults of National Honours Act. Dey produced photographs before the court to show how the nation emblem was disregarded.

Lawyers pointed out that the authorities concerned were not paying heed despite the court order to rectify the error and submit a compliance report within three weeks. It was at this stage that the petitioner's lawyers, Tapas Bhanja and Sujay Bandyopadhyay, pointed out that even the chief justice's chair, on which Bhattacharya was sitting, did not have the Satyameva Jayate inscription.

The acting chief justice stood up immediately and turned around to have a look at the emblem. He then summoned the registrar-general. As soon as he came, Bhattacharya asked him to rectify the mistake and left the room.

The fault, however, could not be rectified in a short time. The registrar-general then asked to replace the CJ's chair with an ordinary one. Justice Bhattacharya sat on that chair and resumed court proceedings after the recess.