Cuttack, June 4: The state government's culture department is embroiled in a controversy with the Dharmapada Award declared by it coming under judicial scrutiny.

The award is the highest honour of the state conferred on Odia artist for his lifetime achievements and contributions towards conservation, propagation and development of art and crafts tradition of Odisha. It carries a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh. The Odisha Lalit Kala Akademi confers the award from the state government's grants.

Padmanava Behera, 75, a Cuttack resident and painter of Jhala Ghate (1961) fame, had filed the petition which came up before a vacation bench of Orissa High Court yesterday. "The division bench of Justice B.P. Ray and Justice Biswanath Rath posted the matter to after two weeks for hearing, along with responses from the state government and the akademi," petitioner counsel Debashis Tripathy told The Telegraph today.

"The court, accordingly, issued notices to the secretaries of the culture department and the akademi to file their replies by then," Tripathy said.

According to the petition, the culture department had issued a resolution on February 13, revising the rules for conferment of the award. The new guideline provided for a seven-member committee for the purpose of selection.

Besides, it included a rule (continuing an existing system), which said: "Any artist applicant or candidate should be an acclaimed artist with recognition at the state or national level and also a felicitated artist with the ovation awarded by the Odisha Lalit Kala Akademi in previous years."

"But surprisingly, the rule was amended by another notification on March 2," the petitioner said, while alleging that in the process his "aspirations, rights and legitimate expectation for receiving the award has been shattered". The rule was amended to enable certain persons to get the award, the petition alleged, while pointing out that two of the seven awardees were members of the seven-member selection committee.

"The akademi is an autonomous institution and its general council is empowered to formulate and adopt any rules and regulations for management of its affairs. The state government has no power and authority to impose any rules and regulations on the akademi," the petition contended, seeking quashing of the March 2 notification of the culture department.

On May 12, the department had declared the names of seven noted persons, who will be accorded the award from 2009 to 2015. The awardees included Golak Bihari Patnaik (2009), Asim Basu (2010), Durga Prasad Das (2011), Sudarshan Sahu (2012), Jatin Das (2013), Dinanath Pathi (2014) and Raghunath Mohapatra (2015).