Tuesday, August 30 2005 20:20 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (Aug 30, 2005) dismissed a petition filed by Sanjeev Bhatnagar seeking review of the Apex Court order rejecting his plea for deletion of the word 'Sindh' from the national anthem.

A Bench of Chief Justice R C Lahoti and Justice P K Balasubramanyan dismissed the review petition refusing to have a re look at the Apex Court's May 13 judgement holding that national anthem was an immortal classic not subject to change.

Bhatnagar had sought deletion of the word 'Sindh' from the anthem on the ground that it has become part of the territory of Pakistan.

The Bench had termed the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Bhatnagar as a 'publicity interest litigation' and imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 on him for 'wasting the valuable time of the Court'.

The Court had agreed with Attorney General Milon Banerjee and senior advocate Ram Jethmalani who had contended that any tampering with the original script of the anthem would lead to its distortion and a great deal of discontent among the large population of Sindhis in India and abroad.

Justice Lahoti, writing for the Bench, had said "National anthem is the representative of the ethos of the country. Any classic, once created, becomes immortal and inalienable; even its creator may not like making changes into it. Any tampering with the script of the poem would be showing disrespect to the great poet Rabindranath Tagore."