The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : BLOWING THE WHISTLE

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 03, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

BLOWING THE WHISTLE

WHISTLEBLOWERS ARE INSIDERS who go public, usually at great risk to their careers and sometimes to their lives, on such things as corruption and malpractice in the organisations they are employed in. While the practice is possibly as old as civilisation, the need for legally protecting it is something that has been recognised only recently. In India, the decision to empower the Central Vigilance Commission to act on the complaints of whistleblowers is welcome as a provisional measure. The notification issued by the Union Ministry of Personnel was prompted largely by the Supreme Court's recommendation that until such time as a full-fledged Whistleblowers Act was in place, an interim mechanism should be devised to protect whistleblowers by executive order. The notification authorises the CVC to act on any complaint of corruption or misuse of office against employees of the Central Government or of a corporation, company, society or local authority under the control of the Centre. At the same time, it empowers the Commission to keep the identity of the complainant secret and, if necessary, protect him or her from being victimised.

In the United States, the Whistleblower Protection Act was passed in 1989 to prohibit the Federal Government from retaliating against employees who blow the whistle against public sector misconduct. In the United Kingdom, such protection to employees is provided in the form of the Public Interest Disclosure Act of 1998. In Australia, whistleblowing legislation, which was pioneered by Queensland in 1994, has been adopted in a similar form by other States and the Federal Government. A number of other countries are in the process of enacting the necessary legislation. In India, the need for protecting whistleblowers was pitchforked to public attention by the Satyendra Dubey murder case. It is suspected that the civil engineer, who worked for the National Highways Authority of India, was murdered because he had complained about the rampant corruption and the poor implementation of work in a section of the Golden Quadrilateral.

Daniel Ellsberg is the whistleblower of all whistleblowers. His memoirs, Secrets, are an education in what it takes and what consequences may be visited on it. In 1971, the former U.S. marine company commander risked his life by leaking 7,000 pages of documents, the "Pentagon Papers," that revealed how successive U.S. Governments had lied about the conduct and consequences of the Vietnam war — an expose that helped turn public opinion against a war that cost more than a million Vietnamese and 55,000 American lives. Interestingly, Ellsberg gave the documents to The New York Times after he failed to persuade a number of politicians to release them. When he was apprehended, he faced a 115-year jail sentence. He now lives in liberty thanks to a botched White House plot to harm him in various psychopathic ways and thanks to a compromised judge who had to abandon the trial and acquit him. Over the years, whistleblowers have exposed a range of unlawful activity in departments such as the police, the secret services, the military, and large private corporations. All legislation protecting whistleblowers is rooted in two vital rights — the public's right to be informed and the whistleblower's right to be protected for acting justly. The legal protection is also recognition that there is a public good involved in the practice. The Government of India's notification covers only employees under its control but legislative protection must extend to the domain of State and local Governments and, of course, to the private sector. The U.K. legislation covers the private sector. Following the recent financial fiddles in corporate houses such as Enron and Worldcom, the U.S. extended legal protection to whistleblowers in publicly traded companies. A comprehensive legislation on whistleblowing must provide legal immunity to those who complain in the public interest against both government and corporate transgressions.

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

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

BLOWING THE WHISTLE

GENOMICS AND HEALTH

The making of coalitions

Gaza: pullout or consolidation?

Vajpayee magic on the wane in U.P.