Whistleblowers' Protection: the Act of 2014 and the PIDPI Resolution

In one line

India passed a law to protect whistleblowers in 2014 and has never brought it into force, so the protection that actually exists is a government resolution of 2004 administered by the Central Vigilance Commission.

In the words a student can write in an exam: the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, being Act 17 of 2014, establishes a mechanism to receive complaints disclosing allegations of corruption or wilful misuse of power or discretion against a public servant, to inquire into such disclosures, and to provide safeguards against the victimisation of the person making the complaint. It has not been brought into force, because section 1(3) makes its commencement dependent on a notification by the Central Government and no such notification has been issued; the Government's stated reason is that the Act requires amendment to safeguard against disclosures affecting the sovereignty and integrity of India and the security of the State. The protection that operates in practice is the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Informers Resolution 2004, under which the Central Vigilance Commission is the designated agency.

Why a whistleblower needs protection at all

The logic should be stated first, because it explains everything that follows.

Corruption is transacted privately between two people who both benefit. There is no complainant, no injured party present at the transaction and no document. The only people who know are the participants and those inside the organisation who see the pattern.

So the detection of corruption depends on somebody inside deciding to speak, and that person faces immediate and predictable consequences: transfer, suspension, a departmental inquiry on a manufactured charge, denial of promotion, harassment of family, and in a number of documented Indian cases, physical harm and death.

Hence the design principle: protection must be automatic and identity must be concealed, because a person who must first prove that his transfer was retaliatory has already been transferred.

The Act of 2014

Its identity, which is confusing

Three names for one statute, and an examiner may use any of them.

• MU's syllabus calls it the Whistleblowers' Protection Act, 2014.
• The Act's own short title is the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2011, because the short title kept the year of the Bill.
• It is Act 17 of 2014, because the assent came on 9 May 2014 and it was published in the Gazette of India on 12 May 2014.

All three refer to the same statute. It began as the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosures Bill 2010, was renamed, was passed by the Lok Sabha on 27 December 2011 and by the Rajya Sabha on 21 February 2014.

Its scheme

Thirty-one sections in seven chapters.