Anu Malik has won the best music director award for Refugee, whose songs show him in one of his more mature scores.

The best lyricist award is shared by Yusufali Kechery for the Malayalam film Mazha and Javed Akhtar for Refugee.

The music awards remained untouched by the controversy that broke out after Pradeep Kishan and two other jury members alleged that the National Film Awards for 2000 had been rigged.

Kishan alleged that a syndicate had "pre-decided" the awards, and had he continued in the panel, he would have ended up as a "rubber stamp".

The awards were announced in Delhi on Tuesday, 27 March.

Vyjayanthimala Bali, the actress who headed the panel, dismissed the charges, but she is, in the words of the accusers, one of the "cynical political cartel" that "bulldozed its way" in deciding the awards. She said Bharati, about the nationalist poet Subramania Bharati, was one of the films initially rejected, but the jury found value in it later and gave it an award.

With Kishan, Cinematographer Shashi Anand and Odissi dancer Madhumita Raut also resigned from the panel on Sunday. Four of the 129 films unanimously rejected by the 17-member jury won major awards. Among them is Daman, for which Raveena Tandon got the best actress award, and Pukar , for which Anil Kapoor was adjudged the best actor, and which reportedly wasn't screened fully for the jury.

Kishan said Raveena had campaigned for the BJP during the last elections and her uncle Macmohan was on the jury. Vyjayanthimala quit the Congress some time ago and joined the BJP. Tarun Vijay, another jury member, edits Pachjanya, the RSS mouthpiece.

Krishan conceded that the panel had selected some films which he would have supported.

 

Rajkumar Santoshi's Pukar has also won an award for national integration. Rituparno Ghosh won the Best Director award for his film Utsav .

 

Shyam Benegal's Zubeidaa was adjudged the best Hindi film while Malayalam film Santham, directed by Jayaraj, won the best feature film award.

Pukar also won the Nargis Dutt National Integration Award, while Amol Palekar's Kal Ka Admi was adjudged the best film in the family welfare category.

H G Dattatreya gets the best supporting actor award for his performance in the Kannada film Munnudi and the best supporting actress award goes to K P A C Lalitha for her performance in the Malayalam film Shantham .

The special jury award went to veteran film and stage actor Soumitra Chatterjee for Dekha .



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