Making good good laws can not serve the purpose, there are several such laws In India but have become useless due to lack of proper implementation. Hence entire governance system has become defunct. There was hope that Right to Information Act (RTI) will help reduce corruption and improve governance but it didn’t happen. Many people who brought to light irregularities through RTI had to loose their lives or compelled to face the music.
Hence there was a demand of a law to protect such whistle blowers, it was paid heed and whistleblower protection act came in to existence, though rules to this act are yet to be formed. This act was supposed to protect persons including public servant making a public interest disclosure related to an act of corruption, misuse of power, or criminal offence by a public servant.
To protect such whistle blowers there are three major provisions in whistle blower act
a) Government has to ensure that no person or a public servant who has made a disclosure under this Act is victimized by initiation of any proceedings or otherwise merely on the ground that such person or a public servant had made a disclosure or rendered assistance in inquiry under this Act.
b) The Head of the organization or office concerned shall not directly or indirectly reveal the identity of the complainant or public servant who made the disclosure.
c)If any person is being victimized or likely to be victimized on the ground that he had filed a complaint or made disclosure or rendered assistance in inquiry under this Act, he may file an application before the Competent Authority seeking redress in the matter,
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| Picture courtesy http://www.livelaw.in |
There was a hope that large number persons inside the system will come forward to to bring irregularities in their own department. But it didn’t happen, because till today our system hasn’t matured enough to take it positively if any public servant brings to light some irregularities of his/her own department.
For example a lady constable in Maharashtra police department took a training of Right to Information act from Yashada. As a part of training she was asked to have inspection of information disclosed under section 4 of RTI act of any public authority and give a gradation. The lady had a inspection of her own department and gave “D” i. e worst gradation because compliance u/s section 4 of the department was not up to the mark. Not only that in good faith she also reported this thing to highest officer of the department, and informed them that she will inspect the office once again after a month. As the lady had already brought some irregularities out through RTI, seniors took this letter as a insult to them. They sent her show cause notice and penalized her with fine of 110 rupees for alleged indiscipline.
There may be truth in allegations of abusive language by the the lady constable. There are some rules and regulation of departments, that are to be followed by by the servants and in department like police those are very strict have to be followed. Hence fine imposed upon lady constable can be justifiable. But in this case police obeyed their rules but what about RTI and whistleblower act, did they follow it? , did the information related to section 4 comply with? Did they take any action on irregularities exposed by lady constable? The answer is “no”?
There is lot of anger in police department over Unequal allocation of dities and subsequently irregularities and injustice due to it. Hence they are demanding dissemination of duty chart since many days. They tried to obtain about it through RTI but failed. Ae well there is long pending demand implementation of recommendations made in various report on police reforms .But nobody paid heed to their demands hence some people tried RTI rout, due which some irregularities came to light. But obviously senior felt unhappy because this move was straight attack on their inefficiency. Hence they are victimizing junior level staff under the garb of departmental discipline. Now question before such staff is whether to bend before departmental discipline or to fight against injustice with help of RTI and whistleblower act.
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| Image courtesy http://puputupu.blogspot.in/ |
In this case as this lady constable has brought many irregularities of the department to the light police department has sent has several show cause notices to her. In such scenario to whom she should go for protection and justice?. It’s sure that her own department is not ready to help her and there is no competent authority appointed under whistle blower act.
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RTI KATTA
RTI KATTA is a platform to empower oneself through discussions amongst each other to solve their problems by using Right to Information act, Every Sunday at Chittaranjan Watika, Model Colony,Shivaji nagar, Pune, between 9.30 to 10.30 A.M.
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