New Delhi: A court in Mumbai has dismissed a petition which accused West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee of “disrespecting” the national anthem at an event held in December 2021 in Mumbai.Junking the petition, the court said, “No offence is made out.”According to petitioner Vivekanand Gupta, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Mumbai unit, Banerjee did not stand when the national anthem was played at the event she attended in the city in December 2021. He further alleged that towards the end of the programme, she started singing the national anthem while sitting in her chair, then stood up abruptly and sang a few lines, following which she left the programme while the anthem was still being sung.Gupta sought a case be filed against Banerjee, by registering a first information report (FIR) under the Prevention of Insults to the National Honour Act. The Metropolitan Magistrate (Mazgaon court), however, dismissed the plea.According to Banerjee’s lawyers, the petitioner was not present at the event and relied merely on a truncated version (1-2 mins) of the full video broadcast in the media. The court also noted that the clip under consideration was only 17-19 seconds long.Banerjee’s lawyers also told the court that she had “slowly, emphatically and respectfully recited the four verses of the National Anthem” while emphasising the words “Maratha” and “Banga”. She then marked the end of the event by chanting “Jai Maharashtra, Jai Bengal, and Jai Bharath” as a salutation to the motherland, said Banerjee’s lawyers, according to Times of India.She was first served summons by the magistrate court, prompting her to challenge it in the sessions court. Setting aside the summons, the sessions court had directed the magistrate to adjudicate the matter afresh.While deciding her plea, the sessions court had observed in March that not standing up for the national anthem may have been disrespectful, but not an offence, according to Hindustan Times. “Undoubtedly, the complainant was not present in the said function. He has no personal knowledge about the event that was conducted on December 1, 2021. The only source of information for the complainant was a news report relied upon by him. It is to be noted here that as per averments in the complaint itself, prominent people from various backgrounds had attended the said function. In the aforesaid factual scenario, it was mandatory on the part of the Metropolitan Magistrate to hold an inquiry as per Section 202 of the CrPC,” the sessions court had said.Banerjee’s lawyers then moved the Bombay high court with a plea to get the case quashed. However, the high court did not interfere.The event was held in South Mumbai’s Yeshwantrao Chavan Pratisthan Auditorium in December 2021, and was organised by Javed Akhtar and Sudhindhra Kulkarni.