Amid controversy over whether actor Saif Ali Khan will be stripped off his Padma Shri, his wife and actor Kareena Kapoor said the government has clarified that the award will not be taken back from her husband.

"The government has already issued a letter, and they have written that they are not taking the Padma Shri back, because it was given to him three-four years ago. It (letter) is out and I think the media should have received the letter by now... though the verdict of this case is not yet out," she said.

An activist SC Agrawal has 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 in 2010 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 had said that the Home Ministry had told him that it is examining his petition.

Mr Khan 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.

(NDTV)