CERC for whistle-blower protection

The city-based consumer rights organisation, Consumer Education and Research Centre (CERC), has urged the prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to enact the Whistle Blowers Protection Act.

The centre also demanded an inquiry into the murder of Satyendra Dubey, an IIT engineer who provided information to the prime minister on corruption in the National Highway project funding.

It is painful that persons who try to eradicate corruption run the risk of being murdered and their family members being kidnapped, the centre said.

It is especially so for citizens' groups which have been working for a zero-corruption Indian society, the centre said.

While an inquiry into the Dubey murder case would vindicate the prime minister's campaign for eradication of corruption," the proposed Whistle Blowers Protection Act, already passed by some countries, could be part of the long-term permanent step for protecting conscientious citizens who act as whistle blowers and for dealing with corruption, CERC added.

Under the Act, organisations should be directed to evolve a mechanism which will allow and encourage employees to act as whistle blowers within the organisation and report any instances of fraud, thefts and misappropriation of funds to a committee headed by a judicial member.

The committee in turn will deal with the management directly for corrective measures, thus avoiding any adverse publicity outside the organisation.

"It is high time that on one hand an inquiry be ordered and on the other, a Bill be simultaneously introduced in the Parliament to have such a law enacted," said Manubhai Shah, chairman Emeritus of CERC.