Akshay Kumar won this year’s Best Actor National Award for Rustom. The response to this win has primarily been disbelief as Akshay’s performance in the film wasn’t even his personal best in 2016. Jury member (and director) Priyadarshan has given this ‘brilliant’ explanation for Akshay’s win –
Priyadarshan describing the state of Indian film awards – and his own lack of credibility as Jury head – with fine examples and analogies. pic.twitter.com/n5PO6kKpJH
— Aniruddha Guha (@AniGuha) April 8, 2017
The one actor who has been vocal about his displeasure is Arvind Swami. The Telugu and Malayalam film star who made his foray into Bollywood with Roja and Bombay, put out a sly tweet dissing the jury members.
Nanavati case was one of the last of the jury trials in India. There seems to be other good reasons to do away with the jury. Sorry, seemed?
— arvind swami (@thearvindswami) April 8, 2017
For the unaware, Rustom is a fictionalized version of the 1959 Nanavati case which lead to the Government abolishing jury trials in India.