1. 1965 – G. Sankara Kurup (malajálam)
2. 1966 – Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay (bengáli)
3. 1967 – Umashankar Joshi (gudzsaráti)
4. 1967 – K. V. Puttappa (kannada)
5. 1968 – Sumitranandan Pant (hindi)
6. 1969 – Firaq Gorakhpuri (urdu)
7. 1970 – Viswanatha Satyanarayana (telugu)
8. 1971 – Bishnu Dey (asszámi)
9. 1972 – Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (hindi)
1973. 10. – D. R. Bendre (kannada)
1973. 11. – Gopinath Mohanty (Odia)
1974. 12. – Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar (marathi)
1975. 13. – P. V. Akilandam (tamil)
1976. 14. – Ashapoorna Devi (bengáli)
1977. 15. – K. S. Narasimhaswamy (kannada)
1978. 16. – S. H. Vatsyayan „Agyeya” (hindi)
1979. 17. – Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya (asszámi)
1980. 18. – S. K. Pottekkatt (malajálam)
1981. 19. – Amrita Pritam (pandzsábi)
1982. 20. – Sitakant Mahapatra (Odia)
1983. 21. – Masti Venkatesha Iyengar (kannada)
1984. 22. – Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai (malajálam)
1985. 23. – Phanishwarnath „Renu” (hindi)
1986. 24. – Sachidananda Routray (Odia)
1987. 25. – Visnu Sakharam Khandekar (marathi)
1988. 26. – C. Narayana Reddy (telugu)
1989. 27. – Qurratulain Hyder (urdu)
1990. 28. – Vinda Karandikar (marathi)
1991. 29. – Subhash Mukhopadhyay (bengáli)
1992. 30. – Nirmal Verma (hindi)
1993. 31. – Girish Karnad (kannada)
1994. 32. – U. R. Ananthamurthy (kannada)
1995. 33. – M. T. Vasudevan Nair (malajálam)
1996. 34. – Mahasweta Devi (bengáli)
1997. 35. – Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan „Agyeya” (hindi)
1998. 36. – Girish Chandra Sen (bengáli)
1999. 37. – Nissim Ezekiel (angol)
38. 2000 – Indira Goswami (asszámi)
2001. 39. – O. N. V. Kurup (malajálam)
2002. 40. – Govind Chandra Pandey (hindi)
41. 2003 – Deepa Mehta (hindi)
42. 2004 – K. J. Yesudas (malajálam)
43. 2005 – Kunwar Narain (hindi)
44. 2006 – Ravindra Kelekar (marathi)
45. 2007 – O.P. Bhatnagar (hindi)
2008. 46. – Akhil Katha (hindi)
47. 2009 – Pratibha Ray (Odia)
48. 2010 – Chandrashekhara Kambar (kannada)
49. 2011 – Pratibha Ray (Odia)
50. 2012 – Ravindra Kelekar (marathi)
2013. 51. – Kedarnath Singh (hindi)
52. 2014 – Bhalchandra Nemade (marathi)
53. 2015 – Raghunath Chaudhari (Odia)
54. 2016 – Shankha Ghosh (bengáli)
55. 2017 – Krishna Sobti (hindi)
56. 2018 – Amit Chaudhuri (angol)
57. 2019 – Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri (malajálam)
58. 2020 – Chiranjit (bengáli)
59. 2021 – Damodar Mauzo (konkani)
60. 2022 – Amitav Ghosh (angol)