During the Independence day Speech today, the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana paid tributes to Pingali Venkayya, the designer of the Indian National flag.
CJI Ramana said that “Today I see the tricolour flying high above us. I cannot help but take pride and remember Shri Pingali Venkayya, who is the architect of the national flag, who hails from the Telugu land, who designed the national flag.
An Independence Day celebration was organized by the Supreme Court Bar Association , where the CJI hoisted the National flag at the Supreme Court lawn. He was accompanied by CJI-designate Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and the Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju.
Shri Pingali Venkayya, was a freedom fighter who believed in Gandhian philosophy. He was born in year 1876 in the present day Andhra Pradesh.
It was the 1921, at the All India Congress Committee meeting in Vijayawada that a design of National flag to given to Mahatma Gandhi. This first flag was coloured red and green.
It is later that on Gandhi’s
suggestion, Venkayya added a white stripe in between. Since then, the flag designed by Venkayya has been used informally at all Congress meetings.
The present form of the flag was adopted during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly on July 22, 1947.
An ad hoc committee was constituted by the Constituent Assembly for National flag, which constituted of Dr. Rajendra Prasad along with Abul Kalam Azad, K.M. Panikar, Sarojini Naidu, C. Rajagopalachari, K.M. Munshi and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.
It took a long time for the Flag Committee to decide, several meetings were held at depth. It arrived at the following decision.
a) The flag of the Indian National Congress should be adopted as the National Flag of India with suitable modifications, to make it acceptable to all parties and communities in India.
(b) The flag should be tricoloured, with three bands horizontally arranged.
c) The colours should be in the following order: saffron on top, white in the middle and dark green at the bottom.
bottom.
(d) The emblem of the flag should be an exact reproduction of the wheel on the capital of Asoka’s Sarnath Pillar, superimposed in the middle.of the central white band.
e) The colour of the emblem should be dark blue.”
In the year 1947, July 22, a motion was moved by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru in the Constituent Assembly of India for the adoption of the National Flag.
It was resolved that the National Flag of India shall be a horizontal tricolour of deep Saffron (Kesari), white and dark green in equal proportion.
The centre of the flag shall be white band, with a wheel of navy blue to represent the Chakra. The design of the wheel shall be that of the Wheel (Chakra) which appears on the abacus of the Sarnath Lion Capital of Asoka.”
CJI also mentioned that a postage stamp to commemorate Venkayya and the first flag was issued in 2009.
He also added that Vijayawada station of the All India Radio was named after him in 2014.