Star quotient ruled the National Film Awards presentation ceremony on Friday as superstar Amitabh Bachchan and a host of Bollywood and regional cinema achievers were honoured by President Pratibha Patil in New Delhi.

Veteran producer D Ramanaidu was conferred with the Dada Saheb Phalke award.

Except veteran musician Illyaraja, who bagged the award for his background score in “Pazhassi Raja”, and Ranjan Palit, who has been awarded for the best voiceover, all other winners were present.

While Bachchan received the best actor award for his performance in “Paa”, Aamir Khan-starrer “3 Idiots” got the award for the best popular movie.

But it was Malayalam drama “Kutty Srank” which walked away with five awards, including the best feature film.

“Kutty Srank”, with Mammootty in the lead, also won awards for best cinematography, best screenplay, best costume and a special jury recognition which it shared with Bollywood hit “Kaminey” and Malayalam film “Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja”.

While producer Reliance Big Picture and director Shaji N Karun of “Kutty Srank” received Swarna Kamal and Rs 2.5 lakh each, the producer and director of “3 Idiots” – Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Raj Kumar Hirani got Swarna Kamal and Rs two lakh each.

Bachchan got a standing ovation when he received the Rajat Kamal and Rs 50,000 from the President.

His wife Jaya, son Abhishek Bachchan and daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai were present at the function when the actor received his fourth national award.

He had earlier won national awards for his performances in “Black” (2005, best actor), “Agnipath” (1990, best actor) and “Saat Hindustani” (1969, best newcomer).

Raykesh Omprakash Mehra’s “Delhi 6”, shot in the bylanes of Old Delhi, bagged the Nargis Dutt award for best feature film on national integration while Shyam Benegal’s “Well Done Abba” was chosen as the best movie on social issues.

R Balki’s “Paa” also got the best Hindi film, besides winning recognition in the best supporting actress category (Arundhuti Nag) and best make-up (Christein Tinsley and Dominie Till).

Amit Trivedi got the best music director award for Anurag Kashyap’s “Dev-D”, a modern take on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s classic “Devdas”.

The emotional number ‘Behti hawa sa tha woh’ from “3 Idiots” bagged the best lyrics award for Swanand Kirkere.

The best children’s film award was shared by “Putaani Party” in Kannada and “Keshu” in Malayalam.

Jeeva and Anba Karaus shared the best child actor award.

Telegu film “Magadheera” bagged awards for special effects and choreography.

The best audiography award was shared by Oscar winner Resool Pookutty and Amrit Pritam for “Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja’, Subash Sahoo (location sound) for “Kaminey” and Anup Dev (re-recordist of the final missed track) for “3 Idiots”.

The awards were announced by chairpersons of each of the three juries for feature films, non-feature films and film writing.

According to Ramesh Sippy, chairperson of the jury on feature films, the system adopted for selection of movies this time was a two-tier one in which a regional jury first screened the films from five regions after which a central jury went through them.

He had said that based on discussions, the jury had decided to recall five films which had not made it in the first list at the level of the regional juries.

Out of these, two – “Natrang” (best film in Marathi) and “Houseful” (best female playback) won awards.