A whistleblower is a person who raises a concern about wrongdoing occurring in an organization or body of people. Usually this person would be from that same organization. The revealed misconduct may be classified in many ways; for example, a violation of a law, rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest, such as fraud, health/safety violations, and corruption. Whistleblowers may make their allegations internally (for example, to other people within the accused organization) or externally (to regulators, law enforcement agencies, to the media or to groups concerned with the issues).Whistleblowers frequently face reprisal, sometimes at the hands of the organization or group which they have accused, sometimes from related organizations, and sometimes under law.
A proposed legislation to protect whistleblowers and provide for severe punishment to those exposing the identity of people disclosing information was approved by the Government. The Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosure Bill, 2010 (Whistleblowers Protection Bill, 2010) is aimed at protecting the identity of citizens who reveal information about the misuse of public authority and public money. The bill, with the provisions to prevent disciplinary action or any other kind of victimisation of whistleblowers, will cover complaints against all central and state government employees as well as public sector employees. The Bill is expected to encourage disclosure of information in public interest and people who expose corruption in government.
The Bill provides the Central Vigilance Commission(CVC)powers of a civil court to hand down harsh penalty to people revealing the identity of whistleblowers. The CVC will be the nodal agency in all such cases. The penalty under the proposed legislation for the guilty is up to three years of jail and a fine of up to Rs.50, 000.
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