The whole exercise of a whistleblowers’ Act seems to be a complete eyewash. One, it does not cover people in the private sector; it covers only the government servants.
Two, the CVC has been made the nodal agency, but it has only been given advisory powers. It is written that they will investigate and recommend appropriate action to the government. They can’t take any action themselves. What if it is a high-profile case? The third problem is that the identity of the whistleblower is being disclosed to the head of the department. It will render the whole thing useless, as the HoD in most cases may be involved himself.
Fourthly, the HoD is required to conduct the investigation. The CVC will forward cases to the HoD. This is like asking the cheat to conduct an investigation against himself. What if the HoD is involved? Next, the whole thing does not cover politicians. Politicians are out of this Act despite most high-profile corruption cases involving politicians. If I am a whistleblower and I have information against politicians, where will I go?
Strangely, it also says that anonymous complaints will not be entertained. In my opinion, the government should be interested in information and not who is giving the information. Most interestingly, when the CVC is conducting the inquiry and they call for information or records from the department concerned, the latter can refuse to give the information to the CVC on the pretext of security, incitement of offence, indecency or immorality, disruption of public order, contempt of court or defamation. So, in a way, CVC will not get any information from anywhere, because every department will refuse to give information under some clause.
Moreover, there are no checks and balances within the CVC. If the CVC’s own officers turn corrupt, what happens then? Lastly, there is too much dependency on the departments to investigate against themselves, which will not work. CVC as a body, the kind of powers and resources that it has today, is completely incompetent to handle whistleblower protection and anti-corruption system in the country. The CVC has miserably failed in this regard in the past 45 years of its existence. In its present form, the CVC is only a showpiece of the government.