I have on container whose image sha shown does not corresponds to any of the existing images

I found one container in stopped state with an image sha that does not exist. On starting the container, I was able to start the container also. The image sha on starting the container was still giving a sha for an image not existing.
As far as my understanding, whenever an image is removed, the corresponding containers should also get deleted, but as per this case, a container exists for an image that has been removed.
Is there a possible scenario for such an occurrence?