KAMAL DEY Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Court: This writ petition is filed as a public interest litigation seeking a direction to the official respondent to lay down proper norms and guidelines for ascertaining the eligibility criteria for selecting the candidates for the awards which are called 'National Awards' including Bharat Ratna and Pama Awards. The writ petition is founded on the plea that the directions issued by the Apex Court through the judgment in Balaji Raghavan vs. Union of India [AIR 1996 SC 770] are not being complied with and are being violated. One of the specific issues attempted to be pointed out is that, according to the petitioner, there is an outer limit of fifty put on the Padma Awards but this limit is being breached.

(2.) Before we proceed further, we may notice that it is a matter of record that the petitioner himself is a self-nominated applicant for grant of such award.

(3.) Be that as it may, confining ourselves to the fundamental issues sought to be raised, we see that Their Lordships of the Supreme Court through Balaji Raghavan (Supra) laid down a law that the national awards including Bharat Ratna and Padma Awards do not amount to titles for the purpose of Article 18 of the Constitution of India. This is fundamentally the sum and substance of the major part of the ratio decidendi of the judicial decision. The said judgment further expands its horizon to say that Their Lordships were not satisfied that there was a transparent and laid down mode of guidelines for grant of Padma award. Therefore, directions were issued to constitute a committee to visit the norms, if any, already in place and to formulate new guidelines if there are no requisite guidelines governing the field. While the petitioner refers to paragraph 42 of the judgment of Balaji Raghavan (Supra) to say that the number of awards under each category must be curtailed to preserve their prestige and dignity in any given year, the Padma Awards, all put together, may not exceed fifty, we may notice that the said observation is part of the separate opinion framed by Hon'ble Justice Kuldip Singh (as His Lordship then was) while the directions contained in paragraph 33 of that judgment of Balaji Raghavan (Supra) required that the guidelines have to be considered by a High Level Committee appointed by the Prime Minster in consultation with the President of India. The existing guidelines, if any, were also required to be considered. Thus, a High Level Committee was constituted by the Prime Minister in May 1996 in consultation with the President of India. The composition of that committee is delineated in a report of the High Level Revue Committee which shows that the committee was constituted as under:-