The Hindu : National : Court seeks report on protection to 'whistle blowers'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 06, 2004

National

National

Court seeks report on protection to 'whistle blowers'

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 5. The Supreme Court today directed the Centre to respond within a week on specific measures of protection to `whistle blowers' who highlight corruption against public servants.

A Bench, consisting of Justice Ruma Pal and Justice P. Venkatarama Reddi, asked the Solicitor-General, Kirit Raval, to come up with the scheme next week even as Mr. Raval pleaded for three weeks time saying the matter involved law and order which was a State subject and the State had to be consulted before drawing up such a law.

The Bench was hearing a public interest litigation petition filed by an Non-Governmental Organisation and advocate, Rakesh Upadhyaya, in connection with the alleged murder of the engineer, Satyendra Dubey, who was working with the National Highway Authority of India in Bihar.

The Bench told Mr. Raval that there was an immediate need to have some measures to protect all those who reported corruption in the Central and State Government and granted a week's time to the Centre for its response.

The petitioner had sought a direction to the Centre to evolve a system as recommended by the Constitution Review Committee in 2002 in the Whistle Blower Act to ensure the protection to the citizen/person complaining of corruption and to keep the complainant's name secret and to order a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the death of Dubey (in November).

The petitioner cited a newspaper report on the murder of Dubey, Deputy General Manager of the NHAI, who had written to the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, about the alleged siphoning off of money from the project at the Barachatti segment in Bihar.

He had highlighted several instances of "loot of public money" and "poor implementation" of the project.

The petitioner submitted that despite the request of the deceased not to divulge his name, his identity was disclosed leading to his murder.

This case would discourage anyone from the public from complaining to the authorities about the involvement of powerful corrupt persons.

Even in the absence of the Whistle Blower Act, the State had a fundamental duty to keep the name of such person secret for the protection of his fundamental right to life.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National