Kalpana Kumari Devi and (above) her novel Achinha Basabhumi

Cuttack, Feb. 2: Orissa High Court today imposed restriction on presentation of the Sahitya Akademi Award – 2011 to author Kalpana Kumari Devi for her Odia novel Achinha Basabhumi.

She was to receive the award on February 14 at the Festival of Letters, organised by the Kendriya Sahitya Akademi, in New Delhi.

The court issued the interim restriction on a PIL, challenging nomination of the novel to receive the Sahitya Akademi Award.

Sricharan Pratap Kanishka, the Odia writer and proprietor of Pine Books, filed the PIL, seeking quashing of the nomination citing violation of the Annual Sahitya Akademi Awards Rules.

“After a preliminary hearing, the division bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra, in an interim order, today said the award should not be presented to Kalpana Kumari Devi, pending final decision on the PIL,” petitioner counsel Prasanna Kumar Mishra told The Telegraph.

“The court further ordered to include Kalpana Kumari Devi as a party in the case and issued notice to her, while issuing notices to all the seven parties named in the petition,” Mishra said.

Among those, named in the PIL, included secretary of the Union ministry of tourism and culture, both president and secretary of the National Academy of Letters, the Language Advisory Board (Odiya) of Sahitya Akademi, jury of Sahitya Akademi (Odiya) and regional secretary of the Sahitya Akademi.

The petitioner alleged that nomination of Achinha Basabhumi violated Rule 1 (1) of the Annual Sahitya Akademi Awards Rules.

According to the petition, the rule said: “The selected book for receiving the award for a particular book must be a first publication in any language during the three years prior to the year, immediately, preceding the year of the award.”

“In the present case, since the award is of the year 2011, the books actually published during the year from 2007 to 2009 should have been taken into consideration. The book, Achinha Basabhumi, however, was actually published towards the last part of the year 2010, but the year of publication was manipulated by the publisher and the same was placed before the Language Advisory Committee for selection of award winning book,” the petitioner stated.

Citing excerpts of an interview of Kalpana Kumari Devi, published in a monthly Odia magazine, the petitioner stated that no writings of the author were published between 1986 and February 2010.

“Moreover, Achinha Basabhumi is not an outstanding book within the definition of the rules,” the petitioner further alleged.

Kalpana Kumari Devi’s book, an autobiography, was selected under the genre of novels. She had earlier said to The Telegraph that the book was published in 2009. The jury for the Odia author award of the Kendriya Sahitya Akademi included Devdas Chhotray, Shrinibas Mishra and Chandrasekhar Rath.