Sir — This refers to reports that former justice JS Verma’s family has declined to accept the Padma Bhushan award for the former judge. The refusal is mainly due to the Union Government’s faulty practice of continuing with tradition of having three variants of Padma awards.
Persons (or their families) getting lower variants of the Padma awards naturally feel humiliated. Earlier also, there have been cases when Padma awards were rejected by nominees due to similar reasons. Instead of sticking to convention, the Government should seek the consent of nominees (or their family-members) before announcing the Padma awards.
It is improper to grade Padma awardees in three variants in a country of more than a billion, thereby degrading the value of the Padma Shri as against the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan. There should be just one Padma award. A person should be honoured only once in his lifetime with a Padma award. Many politicians, as part of their please-all policy, recommend dozens of names, thus unnecessarily burdening the selection-procedure.
The consent of the leader of the Opposition in selecting members of the awards committee should be made mandatory. In fact, the Opposition leader should be part of such a panel. There have been cases where persons with questionable records have been honoured with Padma awards. Clearance for the names must be done only after a thorough scrutiny. As of now, there appears to be haste among decision-makers to announce names for the awards.