Court reserves order on Sachin Tendulkar's Bharat Ratna

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Monday reserved its order on a PIL challenging the award of Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, to cricketer Sachin Tendulkar.

The petition filed by IPS official Amitabh Thakur and social activist Nutan Thakur contended that the award had no provisions or guidelines to select people.

The petitioner's counsel Asok Pande argued that cricket was less of a sport and more a 'tamasha' or fun.

Pande said there were no guidelines to select Bharat Ratna winners as against the guidelines governing Padma awards.

Additional Solicitor General K C Kaushik presented a list of Bharat Ratna awardees so far.

The bench of Justices Imtiyaz Murtaza and D K Upadhyaya reserved the ruling after listening to both the parties. The date of judgement would be announced later.

The petitioners prayed for a larger committee for these awards to bestow Bharat Ratna to the "truly deserving".