BY S A Ishaqui
Hyderabad, April 12: The Supreme Court Friday rapped film actor M. Mohan Babu for prefixing “Padma Shri” to his name in the credits of the film Denikaina Ready.
A two member bench comprising Justice H.L. Dattu and S.A. Bobde was hearing a special leave petition by Mohan Babu challenging an order of the AP High Court, in which the Court directed the Union Home Ministry to place this subject before the President for forfeiture of Padma Shri granted to the actor, on account of misuse of the award.
High Court concluded that the award had been misused by Mohan Babu as a title deliberately and it invited forfeiture.
After hearing the appeal, the bench pointed out that the petitioner was not entitled to prefix the award to his name for film publicity in light of a similar ruling by the Supreme Court in Balaji Raghavan versus Union of India case that clarified “the National Awards do not amount to ‘titles’ within the meaning of Article 18(1) and they should not be used as suffixes or prefixes.If this is done, the defaulter should forfeit the National Award conferred on him or her by following the procedure laid down in Regulation 10 of each of the four notifications creating these National Awards.”
The bench pointed out that the High Court established that the act of the appellant was deliberate.The bench directed the counsel file counter affidavit and posted the case to April 17.
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