Law relating to whistleblowing in India a critical study

Abstract

All over the world, whistleblowers are greeted as heroes or role models for their acts of whistleblowing. They play an important part in the fight against corruption. However being a whistleblower is not easy as he has to face many repercussions for blowing the whistle. A whistleblower is subject to victimization, falsely charged with criminal and civil allegations and in worst conditions killed for his act of whistleblowing. Due to this fact, it is necessary to enact a statute for the protection of whistleblowers. There are so many international conventions and agreements that provide Member States to adopt comprehensive laws for the protection of whistleblowers in their domestic legal system. Many countries have enacted and adopted or are enacting and adopting legislations for the whistleblowers protection. Even in India, the status of whistleblowers is not optimal as many whistleblowers were killed in the past because of the absence of the legislation for their protection. So there was both international and national pressure on India to enact a law for the protection of whistleblowers. Thus, the Government of India has passed The Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014 . It is the first law of the country that aims to render protection to the whistleblowers, i.e., the persons who make complaints concerning corruption or criminal offence committed or being committed by any government servant. This Act is unique in the world as it recognizes any individual or NGO as whistleblower. However, the Act also contains many drawbacks and is considered a paper tiger because the provisions of the Act are not strong enough to provide sufficient protection to whistleblowers. Since whistleblowing legislations aim to encourage a culture of transparency and accountability in the system, it is necessary to make the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014 more strong and effective by amending it so that it can efficiently protect the whistleblowers. newline