The Union culture ministry about a parliamentary committee’s recommendation to get Sahitya Akademi award winners to sign an undertaking that they will not return the literary honour for any reason, including as a political protest.

The panel informed Parliament about this in its report on Monday, saying that the ministry has expressed doubts about the legal enforceability of such undertakings.

The Union government had been responding to recommendations made by the parliamentary standing committee on culture in .

While making the recommendations, the committee had cited the “” protest of 2015, when 39 Sahitya Akademi recipients had to at the growing incidents of communal violence in the country, particularly the murder of Kannada language writer MM Kalburgi.

The panel had said that returning the winners returning their prizes to protest “certain political issues” that were “outside the ambit of the cultural realms” undermined the achievements of other awardees and “ and reputation of the awards”.

The ministry said that it agreed with the panel’s “perspective and would like to avoid controversies” when it comes to returning of the awards, The Hindu reported. “However, obtaining a signed commitment from the writer prior to the award announcement would unfortunately surrounding the selection process,” the ministry was quoted as saying.

In 2015, among those...