Clamour for Bharat Ratna Award starts

New Delhi: As speculation swirled that former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose may be named for Bharat Ratna, there was a clamour on Sunday for Dhyan Chand, Kanshi Ram and Bhagat Singh to be also considered for the country's highest civilian award. Congress said that more eminent personalities should figure in the Bharat Ratna list if government was going by the “historical route”.

Senior Congress leader Manish Tewari wanted names of legendary freedom fighters including Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Lala Lajpat Rai be also considered.

“If government going the historical route on Bharat Ratnas it should also consider the names of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Lala Lajpat Rai...,” he said on Twitter. Mr Tewari also suggested names of founders of the INA Rash Behari Bose, Gen. Mohan Singh, Annie Besant & A.O. Hume and Gopal Krishna Gokhale in his tweet.

The former Union minister also recalled litigations in early 1990s over conferring the highest civilian award. Another Congress leader Rashid Alvi said besides Bose, Kanshi Ram, who was BSP founder, and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) founder Sir Syed Ahmed Khan should get the honour.

Broil over Bose

In 1992, a press release was published by the President’s Secretariat to confer the award posthumously on Subhas Chandra Bose.

• The decision triggered much criticism and a PIL was filed in Calcutta HC to revoke the award. The petitioner took objection to the conferral of the award and its posthumous mention of Bose saying that honouring a personality higher than the award is “ridiculous.”
• It also said that the award cannot be conferred to Bose posthumously as the Centre had not officially accepted his death in 1945.
• To deliver the judgement, the SC formed a bench. The SG noted that to confer the award the recipient’s name must be published in The Gazette of India and entered in the register of  the President.
• It was also noted that only an announcement had been made by press communiqué by the Centre
• Also, the then Presidents R. Venkataraman (1987–92) and Shankar Dayal Sharma (1992–97), had not conferred a certificate with their signature and seal.
• On 4 August 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that since the award had not been officially conferred, it cannot be revoked and declared that the press communiqué be treated as cancelled. It did not rule on the issue of Netaji’s death.