President Pratibha Devisingh Patil presenting the Padma Shri Award to Saif Ali Khan Pataudi, at the Civil Investiture Ceremony-II, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi on April 7, 2010.
Actor Saif Ali Khan should be stripped of the Padma Award given to him in 2010, says a petition which is reportedly being examined by the union government.
SC Agrawal, an activist, filed a complaint with the Union Home Ministry in March, saying that Mr Khan, 43, should not be allowed to retain the award- conferred by President Pratibha Patil on him for his contribution as an artist-because a Mumbai court has charged him with assaulting an Indian businessman from South Africa at the five-star Taj Hotel in Colaba, Mumbai in 2012.
Mr Agrawal says the Home Ministry has told him that it is examining his petition.
Mr Khan, who is married to actor Kareena Kapoor, also faces criminal charges in Rajasthan for allegedly hunting the blackbuck deer, a protected species, while on a film shoot in 1998. Actor Salman Khan is also an accused in that case.