NEW DELHI: Highlighting that there is no protection for honest govt officials and also private persons who face the music for exposing corruption by suffering frequent transfers and non-consequential postings, Magsaysay award winner and IFS officer Sanjeev Chaturvedi has moved the Supreme Court for protection of whistleblowers, as the Centre has not notified the Whistleblower Protection Act despite it being passed by Parliament 12 years ago.The officer, who himself is fighting multiple service litigations, has pleaded the apex court to intervene to protect honest officers, as the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014, has remained a dead letter. There is a “structural vacuum,” and the “inaction of the Executive is not merely a policy failure – it is a constitutionally impermissible abdication of a statutory obligation that strikes at the foundational rights of whistleblowers as well as citizens.“Referring to the turbulence in his own career, particularly the alleged vindictive approach of the Congress govt of Haryana between 2008 and 2012, when he was transferred 12 times in four years and was suspended multiple times, he said, “Continuity of institutional persecution in the absence of any protective framework has become systemic norm.”
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“The absence of the Act’s operational framework means there is no single institutional mechanism to which a whistleblower in the petitioner’s position can turn for protection, and there is no authority charged with the specific task of preventing and investigating retaliation,” he said in an affidavit filed in SC.“…The consequence of this executive inaction is that India has, for over 11 years, had no effective legislative framework for the protection of whistleblowers. During this period, countless potential disclosures of public corruption may have been suppressed, and brave individuals who did come forward have had no legal recourse.”The affidavit said India, being a signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, is required to adopt appropriate measures to protect witnesses, experts, victims, and reporting persons from potential retaliation or intimidation, and that not doing so amounts to a governance deficit.