Now the Indian government has finally shown some interest in bringing the jan lokpal bill of India, it is high time to move towards making it a strong, effective and robust law. Experts have been claiming that the present jan lokpal versions are neither strong nor effective. In fact, they have claimed that the present versions of jan lokpal bills do not address many important issues that must be combined to make the jan lokpal law strong and effective.
Although there are many areas that need to be included in the proposed jan lokpal bill of India yet extending a strong and effective protection to the whistleblowers, who raise their voices against the corruption in India, needs a specific mention and adoption.
In fact, in the year 2004/2005 itself a techno legal whistleblowers protection code was suggested by Praveen Dalal, managing partner of New Delhi based techno legal ICT law firm Perry4Law and leading techno legal expert of India. The code was complete techno legal solution till a proper law was formulated by Indian parliament.
However, even after 6 years of providing of such code, Indian parliament has not deemed it necessary to protect the lives of our heroic whistleblowers that have been loosing their lives one by one.
Till now we have no whistleblowers protection law in India and this is making other laws weak and ineffective. Either people are not willing to come forward or if they come forward they loose their lives.
We have to develop Techno Legal Mechanisms that can safeguard the Information provided by and Details of Whistleblowers, opines Praveen Dalal. If lives of Whistleblowers cannot be Safeguarded, Corruption in India can never be eliminated, suggests Dalal.
India has a bad reputation of “Ignoring Formulation of Essential Laws” and Jan Lokpal and Whistleblowers Protection Laws are classic examples of the same. If Parliament of India keeps on functioning only through “Public Disruptions and Agitations”, that would be a death knell of Democracy and Parliamentary Supremacy, opines Praveen Dalal.
It would be better if parliament of India enacts a strong and effective whistleblowers protection law before this cause is also picked up by Indian masses and it forces again the parliament to succumb to its pressure. This is not the way any Parliament, especially the Parliament of the largest Democracy of the World, should function, says Dalal.
