Rao was given a Bharat Ratna by Government of India in spite of the controversy and was active as a Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR). In December 2013, brother and sister Tanaya Thakur, a law student, and Aditya Thakur, a class XII student, filed a public interest litigation in Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench, to challenge Rao's Bharat Ratna. They asserted that "a scientist with proven cases of plagiarism shall not be presented the highest civilian award." But the court ruled them out as "filing pleas for publicity." There was another plea to revoke the award in 2015, but the Central Information Commission dismissed the petition.