The contract was 4♥
South led a small ♣ which was won by declarer with Ace. He entered dummy with ♦ ace and played ♣ King and pitched a ♦ on the ♣. He then cashed the King of ♠ and played a low ♠ from the dummy and inserted the J. South had anticipated that declarer would play ♠ Ace and he was ready with ♠ 7 which he intended to play .He took the ♠ 7 brought it down towards table with the intention of playing it and then noticed Declarer had played Jack .The ♠ 7 was seen by all the other three players on the table South did not place ♠ 7 on the table. He took the card back and played the Queen of spades. At this time the director was called and the director ruled that since all the three players had seen the card, the small card must be played. The ruling was accepted and declarer went on to make 4H while the same contracted was defeated in the other table.
I was declarer and South is a good friend .He has sent me an email .I quote
"on going through the rules of WBF on exposed cards i found this
When a card is exposed by one of defenders (law 50), by means of holding it in such a position that it can be plausibly seen by the offender's partner, in general, it becomes a penalty card. If exposed inadvertently, depending on its rank, it may be a minor (2-9) or a major (10-A) penalty card; however, any card may become a major penalty card if played out of turn. In any case, the penalty card must be played at first legal opportunity, which allows the declarer to organize his play to take advantage of the situation. However, the offender may play an honor of the same suit instead of the minor penalty card. There is no penalty whatsoever for the exposition of declarer's cards, provided it was played inadvertently (a card apparently played advertently may not be retracted except for the purpose of revoke correction).
If a card is exposed during the auction (law 24), it may become a penalty card, and offender's partner may be forced to pass to the end of auction.
I hope this clarifies the situation i.e even though my small spades which my partner had seen becomes a penalty card i can play an honor in the same suit which i did and was dissallowed.which according to this rule was a wrong ruling.
Please advise.
Warm regards
Aniruddha