<P> A few of the conferments have been criticised for honouring personalities only after they received global recognition . The award for Mother Teresa was announced in 1980, a year after she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize . Satyajit Ray received an Academy Honorary Award in 1992 followed by the Bharat Ratna the same year . In 1999, Amartya Sen was awarded the Bharat Ratna, a year after his 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences . The award was proposed by President K.R. Narayanan to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who agreed to the proposal . </P> <P> Though, as per the statutes for the Bharat Ratna, the recommendations for the award can only be made by the Prime Minister to the President, there have been several demands from various political parties to honour their leaders . In January 2008, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani wrote to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recommending Singh's predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee for the award . This was immediately followed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) lobbying for their leader, Jyoti Basu, former Chief Minister of West Bengal . Basu, India's longest - serving chief minister, said that he would decline the honour, even if awarded . Similar demands were made by Telugu Desam Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, and Shiromani Akali Dal for their respective leaders N.T. Rama Rao, Kanshi Ram, and Parkash Singh Badal . In September 2015, regional political party Shiv Sena demanded the award for the independence activist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar stating that he had been "deliberately neglected by previous governments" but his family clarified that they are not making such demand and that the freedom fighter is known for his contribution towards independence movement and did not need an award for recognition . </P> <P> Per the original statutes, sportspersons were not eligible for the Bharat Ratna; however, a revision of the rules in December 2011 made eligible "any field of human endeavour". Subsequently, several sportspersons' names were discussed; among the most talked - about of these was field - hockey player Dhyan Chand, who was recommended multiple times for the posthumous honour . In 2011, 82 members of parliament recommended Chand's name for the award to the Prime Minister's Office . In January 2012, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports forwarded his name again, this time along with 2008 Summer Olympics gold medallist shooter Abhinav Bindra and mountaineer Tenzing Norgay . Bindra had earlier been recommended for the award in May 2013 by the National Rifle Association of India . In July 2013, the ministry again recommended Dhyan Chand . However, in November 2013, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar became the first sports - person to receive the honour and this garnered much criticism for the government . </P> <P> A PIL was filed in the Karnataka High Court where in the petitioner requested the court to issue a direction to the Ministry of Home Affairs to consider their representation dated 26 October 2012 and confer the Bharat Ratna upon Mahatma Gandhi . On 27 January 2014, a counsel appearing for the petitioner noted that after multiple representations from the petitioner, they were provided with the information under RTI that the recommendations to confer the award on Gandhi have been received multiple times in the past and were forwarded to the Prime Minister's Office . A Division bench comprising Chief Justice D.H. Waghela and Justice B.V. Nagarathna dismissed the petition stating that the subject is not amenable to any adjudication process and the nominations and conferment process is stated to be informal and in the discretion of the highest authority in the Government . </P>

Who is the only sportsperson to have been awarded india's highest civilian award bharat ratna