Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 9 (IANS) The Cabinet Monday cleared a bill to protect whistleblowers and it is likely to be tabled during the ongoing monsoon session of parliament, official sources said.
The approval for the Public Interest Disclosure (Protection of Information) Bill, 2010, was given at a cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

As per the bill, the onus will be on the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to protect the identity of the citizens who provide information about the misuse of governmental authority and funds.

The CVC will be empowered to take action against those who reveal the identity of the whistleblowers or those who threaten the whistleblowers while those who make frivolous complaints will also be liable to punishment.

The killing of whistleblowers Manjunath Shanmugam and Satyendra Dubey and many Right to Information activists by anti-socials and vested interests has prompted the government to draft the Bill, official sources told IANS.

Several activists who exposed corruption by bureaucrats and political leaders have been killed or threatened by mafia elements, it was pointed out.

Dubey, an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur alumnus, was killed in Bihar for exposing corruption by contractors in building the national highways.

Shanmugam, originally from Andhra Pradesh, and an officer in the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), was killed after he exposed adulteration in petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh. He was an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow.

There has been a rise in the number of attacks on RTI activsits across the country recently.

In the latest incident, activist Amit Jethwa was shot outside the high court in Ahmedabad last month. Jethwa had named BJP’s Junagadh MP Dinu Solanki while exposing illegal mining in the Gir forest area in Gujarat.

In Maharashtra, RTI activist Datta Patil was found dead in Ichalkaranji in May. He had exposed a corruption racket which had resulted in removal of a police official and disciplinary action against Ichalkaranji corporation officials.

Earlier, Satish Shetty, a whistleblower who exposed land scandals, was killed on Pune city outskirts in January. In a similar case, Vitthal Gite, an activist of Aurangabad was killed in April. Gite had blown the lid off irregularities in a village school in Beed district.

In Bihar, Shashidhar Mishra was killed by unknown attackers in Begusarai in February. His murder came soon after he exposed corrupt deals at the panchayat and block levels.

Several incidents of attacks on RTI activists have been reported from Delhi and other states, officials said.

UPA leaders are hoping that the new bill will act as a deterrent to the vested interests against rights activists.

“RTI has been a major achievement of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. It has created a silent revolution for the common man. The UPA leadership wants the gains of the RTI Act to continue, and the activists to be protected,” said an All India Congress Committee office bearer.