Gurvinder Singh won the best feature film direction award for his directorial debut, Anhe Ghore Da Daan.

[2] The dubbed, revised or copied versions of a film or translation, abridgements, edited or annotated works and reprints were ineligible for the awards.

A total of 156 entries were received in the Non-Feature Films category along with 28 books and 22 articles which were submitted for the Best Writing in Cinema.

On 7 March 2012, in a press conference held at Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi, the winners for the 2012 award ceremony were announced.

[7] A committee consisting of five personalities from the Indian film industry was appointed to evaluate the Dadasaheb Phalke award nominations for 2011.

[9] Chatterjee was a regular in Satyajit Ray films, has worked with other notable directors such as Mrinal Sen and Tapan Sinha in a career lasting over 50 years.

[13] For the Feature Film section, six committees were formed based on the different geographic regions in India.

A committee of seven, headed by director Romesh Sharma, was appointed to evaluate the Non-Feature Films entries.

[15] A committee of three, headed by the National Award-winning writer Vijaya Mulay was appointed to evaluate the nominations for the best writing on Indian cinema.

[a 1][a 2] Other dignitaries present were Ambika Soni (Minister of Information and Broadcasting), Vinod Lamba (President of Film Federation of India), Dharmesh Tiwari (President of Federation of Western India Cine Employees), and two Ministers of State for Information and Broadcasting, C. M. Jatua and R. Jagathrakshkan.

Directed by Dadasaheb Phalke, this silent film was released on 3 May 1913 at Coronation Cinema, Mumbai.

She also announced that a National Heritage Mission would be set up to digitise and restore all audio and video tapes of Indian films.

[a 7] Rajiv Mehrotra of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust won his twentieth National Film Award.

[a 2] The dress designer Neeta Lulla won her fourth award for the costumes in Balgandharva.

[a 8] After the awards were announced on 7 March 2012, Enajori.com, a society which promotes cultural heritage of Assam, filed a petition against the jury's decision for not considering Ekhon Nedekha Nodir Xhipare as an Assamese film and rejecting its nomination.

[18] After examining the documents submitted for the selection of regional films, the High Court dismissed the plea.

The proceedings revealed that Ekhon Nedekha Nodir Xhipare, and other films from the eastern region, were previewed and rejected by the jury.