Are whistleblowers safe in India?

Whistleblowers can pull the curtain from corporate and financial scams, but does our country have enough safeguards to protect them? There have been several whistleblowing cases in our country uncovering major scams, but they may come at the cost of the whistleblowers' mental and physical being. 

BY HARSHIT GUPTA | 5 minutes read

Whistleblowing is the act of drawing public attention, or the attention of an authority figure, to perceived wrongdoing, misconduct, unethical activity within public, private or third-sector organisations. Corruption, fraud, bullying, health and safety violation, cover-ups and discrimination are common activities highlighted by whistleblowers. Over the years, many brave men and women, have put their lives in danger to expose the inner side of the corporate greed. Be it Satyendra Dubey, the project engineer, who exposed the corruption behind the National Highway Association Of India (NHAI)'s Golden Quadrilateral project, or Arvind Gupta, shareholder activist, who exposed loan scam by the ICICI bank, such people have blowed the whistle on corporate malpractices and have forced the companies to abide by the laws and do their business honestly. But why has whistleblowing come into the limelight again?

In October, 2019, a group from India's IT giant, Infosys, calling itself as "ethical employees" wrote to the Infosys board and the US Securities and Exchange Commission about unethical practices carried out by the companies' senior employees to increase short term revenues and profits. Weeks after that, another anonymous complaint was filed against the CEO Salil Parekh about how company's funds were being used to cover his enormous travel expenses. But why do these complaints have to be anonymous?

Obviously, we don't live in a perfect society. If we dial back to 2003, IIT graduate Satyendra Dubey, working in the NHAI's Golden Quadrilateral project exposed the financial irregularities in the project. He found that the project was involved in high level corruption and decided to take on the mafia behind it, despite getting threats. Unfortunately, Satyendra Dubey had to pay for his courage with his life. Two years later, an Indian Oil Corporation officer, Shanmughan Manjunath, was murdered for sealing a petrol pump that was selling adulterated fuel. Even after that, there have been multiple cases of threatening and killing of whistleblowers. Gradually, activists demanded that there should be a law to protect the whistleblowers, to facilitate the disclosure of information and uncover corruption in government organisations. As a result of Satyendra Dubey's case, the Supreme Court forced the government to issue an office order, the Public Interest Disclosures and Protection of Informers Resolution, 2004. "The Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosure Bill, 2010" was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 26 August 2010 and passed on 27 December 2011. The bill was passed on 21 February, 2014 in Rajya Sabha after many delays and received the President's assent on 9 May, 2014.

However, the act hasn't come into force since certain amendments pertaining to national security weren't made. And since then, the act hasn't been enforced. 

An analysis of the situation suggests that the bill has faced criticism as it is constrained towards complaints against those working for the central government and not the state governments. Also, the proposed law has neither provisions to encourage whistleblowing through financial incentives, nor it deals with corporate whistleblowers, i.e., it does not extend its jurisdiction to the private sector. However, some sections of this act have been adopted in the Companies Act, 2013 which applies to publicly listed companies and are a part of SEBI's governance rules. All listed and public sector companies need to have a whistleblower policy that covers processes and reliefs available to complainants.

People like Satyendra Dubey have shown courage in times when there wasn't a safety net for the whistleblowers. However now, new laws and proper complaint redressal systems have led to filing of huge number complaints against companies under anonymity and safety, which is required for the healthy functioning of corporate India.