An interesting controversy
Before going into the
story let me warn you about the title news.
If you are a hot head reader just
go to the last four paragraphs and you will get what you want. Else stay and
stick to this article and I assure you to build a good story up.
Bharat Ratna the most
prestigious civilian award of the republic of India was founded in the year
1954 on January 2. In 1955 the regulations were refreshed and gave room for
posthumous awards. Also the shape of the award was changed on that year from
Gold and Silver-guilt round to the present Peepul leaf shaped platinum carved
and edged burnished-bronze medallion.
If you feel dizzy about the shape just
have a look at the given picture.
The award consists of a
Sanad (Certificate) from the President of Indian Republic with his name and
official seal, a medallion and carries no cash. As you have seen in the picture
the Peepul leaf shaped medallion is inscribed with the emblem of the sun with
the words "Bharat Ratna" in Devanagiri script. The other side has the
State Emblem (or you can call The Lion emblem from Ashoka the great ) and the
words "Satyameva Jeyathe" (Truth alone Triumphs).
The nomination for the
award can only be made by the prime minister of India to the President to a
maximum of three per year. The award becomes official only when the name of the
recipient is published in The Gazette of India, without it conferral of the
award is not official. Only the President has the authority to decide on
revoked or restored awards.
Recently in 2011 the
criteria has been modified to "any field of human endeavour" and gave
room to Sachin Tendulkar to make his mark in the history of Bharat Ratna as
"the youngest recipient and the first sports person ever" to receive
Bharat Ratna.
Another interesting fact about this prestigious award is "It
is prohibited to use the award as part of one's name". It couldn't be used
as a prefix or suffix to the recipient's name as per Article 18 (1), but one can
use "Recipient of Bharat Ratna award or Awarded Bharat Ratna by the
president " with their name. The recipient holds the seventh place in the
order of precedence of India.
1977-1980 and 1992-1995
were the two periods when the conferral of the award was temporarily stopped.
The second period was because of Netaji controversy.
On 23 January 1992 a press
release from President's Secretariat to confer the award posthumously on
Subhash Chandra Bose was released. There started a Public Interest Litigation
at Culcutta High Court to revoke the award.
The reasons were; the government of
India has not accepted the death of Nethaji Subash Chandra Bose till then, and
the whereabouts of him after 1945 was not known to anybody. The term
"Posthumous" was criticised because of these two facts.
The most interesting
thing to me is the way the court handled and passed the judgment to this case.
After the press release of the award, it was not registered in the gazette of
India, also the two then Presidents (K.R. Narayanan and Shankar Dayal Sharma)
during the tenure of the case (1992-1997) had not given any certificate with their
name and official seal to the recipient. Hence the award was not given officially
but only announced, and because of this the announcement had been canceled. It
is not possible to revoke the award which was not given - was the court's
conclusion.
Do you want one more?
The court had not
mentioned anything about "Posthumous" i.e the life and death of
Nethaji Subash Chandra Bose!!!!
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