How to protect Dubeys? Get back to us in a week with your ideas: SC tells the Solicitor General

In a clear display of urgency, the Supreme Court today directed Solicitor General Kirit Raval to propose within a week a mechanism to protec...

In a clear display of urgency, the Supreme Court today directed Solicitor General Kirit Raval to propose within a week a mechanism to protect whistle-blowers.

A bench headed by Justice Ruma Pal gave this assignment to Raval after he had said that the Government would not be able to take any policy decision on whistle-blowers till the elections are over.

So the bench told Raval to look at the issue himself and propose, in his capacity as the nation’s second highest law officer, what the court could do short of directing the Government to come up with a Whistle-blowers Act.

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This direction came on the two PILs following the murder of IIT-graduate Satyendra Dubey who was killed after his letter to the Prime Minister alleging corruption in the Golden Quadrilateral was ignored and his identity not protected.

The Government has so far not filed a reply to the PILs.

When PIL counsel Prashant Bhushan pointed out the Government’s failure to follow up on Dubey’s revelations, the bench said that it first wanted to put in place a mechanism to protect whistle-blowers.

The bench also referred to the Law Commission’s report over two years ago drafting a Bill on whistle-blowers on the lines of the Whistle-blowers Acts in advanced countries such as the US, UK and Australia.Since law-making is the prerogative of the legislature, the court asked Raval to suggest a mechanism that could be created by an executive order within the existing legal system.

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PTI adds: ‘‘We are worried. People as it is are wilting under massive corruption. So, when some brave people who bring out to the public knowledge such corruption, what is being done to protect them,’’ the bench said. Raval stated that the government is in the process of drafting a law integrating the aspects of protecting witnesses as well as whistle-blowers in consonance with the recommendations of the Law Commission of India.

The bench observed: ‘‘Something has to be done now. Something ad hoc has to be done in the interim. If such things are allowed to continue, no one in right senses, would go and give evidence now. We would like to know what the Union government has done. If they have framed guidelines, we could direct the states to adhere to the same.