...And the winner is Mr Bachchan

The announcement comes after court's rejection of a plea against his nomination.

Updated on: Aug 8, 2007, 04:07:32 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The controversy around the 2005 National Film Awards seems to have blown over. And, superstar Amitabh Bachchan will finally get the 53rd National Film Award for best actor for his performance in

Black

from President Pratibha Patil later this year.

Black will also get the award for best feature film in Hindi. The decision to announce the awards was taken after a year of controversy had stalled the event.

The row was sparked when filmmaker Anand Patwardhan’s documentary was not considered by the jury on the ground that the film was not cleared by the Censor Board.

In 2006, Patwardhan moved the Mumbai High Court, which granted a stay on the announcement of the awards. Early this year, the stay was set aside by the Supreme Court, which said the government had the right to fix the eligibility criteria.

But soon after, jury member Shamli Dev contested the superstar’s nomination saying there was pressure on the jury to give him the award. Other jury members have however refuted the charge.

Last week, the Delhi High Court rejected her petition against Bachchan’s nomination and vacated its earlier stay on the announcement.

Though Dev was undeterred and said she would move the Supreme Court, the Big B, for now, is set to claim his third national award, after Agneepath and his debut film Saat Hindustani.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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