Bharat Ratna award controversy continues - Case filed against PM and Sachin Tendulkar

Bharat Ratna award controversy – Case filed against Sachin Tendulkar and PM

A case has been filed in a local court against the Prime Minister of India and Sachin Tendulkar stating that the latter’s selection for the Bharat Ratna award is hurting people’s sentiments.

Sachin Tendulkar has been named as an accused in the case filed under Indian Penal Code Sections 420 (offences relating to cheating and dishonesty) 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), 417 (punishment for cheating), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 120(B) (punishment of criminal conspiracy).

The case which has been filed by local lawyer Sudhir Kumar Ojha claims that the selection of Sachin Tendulkar to receive the highest civilian honour has hurt the sentiments of the people in India. Ojha is of the opinion that legendary hockey player Dhyan Chand should have been the first sportsman to receive this award.

The case has been admitted by the Chief Judicial Magistrate who has fixed December 10 as the date of hearing.

The petitioner has made JD(U) MP Shivanand Tiwari a witness in the case.

Tiwari had protested against the selection of Tendulkar on the ground that the star cricketer did not deserve the country’s highest civilian award as he had made millions out of playing the game in contrast to Dhyan Chand, who had done the country proud by leading the hockey team to gold medals in successive Olympic Games in the 1920s and 1930s.

The UPA government had announced its decision to confer Bharat Ratna on Tendulkar to honour his contributions to cricket within hours of his bidding adieu to cricket last week.