In 2004 the Central Government, stung by allegations of hardly lifting a finger to protect its whistleblowing employees- the Late Mr. Manjunath and the Late Mr. Satyendra Dubey who got murdered, issued a Government resolution creating a system for employees to blow the whistle on cases of wrong doing they come to know of in their department/organisation.
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) is the competent authority for receiving and inquiring into such complaints of wrongdoing in matters of corruption and misuse of office. It is also responsible for protecting the complainant from victimisation by his seniors or colleagues whom he/she may have complained against.The complete text of the Whistleblower Resolution is available on the CVC website.
In March this year, I filed a request under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) seeking statistical information about the number of whistlebower complaints received and disposed of by the CVC.
The CVC’s Public Information Officer (PIO) rejected my request on the ground that compiling the information that I had asked would disproportionately divert its resources.
Later I filed a first appeal with the CVC. The Appellate Authority has also now rejected my request for the same reasons as the PIO without addressing any of the grounds that I had mentioned in support of disclosure of information.
Why should the CVC disclose such information? I had submitted to the CVC’s Appellate Authority the following grounds in favour of disclosure of the information I had sought:
1) that the information is only statistical in nature and does not involve disclosing names of whistleblowers in any case;
2) that Section 7(9) of the Right to Information (RTI Act) which the PIO invoked cannot be used to deny access to information because under the RTI Act an information request may be denied only if the exemptions listed under Sections 8 and 9 are attracted. No other reason for rejection is valid.
3) while rejecting my RTI application the PIO had cited a decision of the Central Information Commission (CIC) from 2011 where a single member had ruled that a request may be rejected under Section 7(9). This decision was issued without hearing either the appellant or the CVC.
I argued before the CVC’s Appellate Authority that the CIC’s decision being quoted is bad in law because it overrules a two-member bench’s decision on the same issue issued in 2006 without even examining it. The CIC had ruled that under 7(9) a request cannot be denied, but the PIO must provide information in some other form that is possible
4) I also produced evidence that the CVC had furnished similar statistical information about the implementation of the Whistleblower policy to Parliament for the years 2010-2011. I was asking for information about one year only. I also argued that as per the proviso under Section 8(1) information that cannot be denied to Parliament cannot be denied to an RTI applicant. So I was entitled to the information. The appellate authority did not even respond to this argument in its order.
What are the Implications of the CVC’s denial of access to information?It is clear that the CVC does not have the information I asked for in one place. It is available in disaggregate form, in individual case files.
It must be remembered the CVC is the competent authority to receive whistleblower complaints under the Whistleblower Protection Bill which the Lok Sabha passed in 2011. It is pending before the Rajya Sabha and the debate which began on the Bill had to be postponed due to the untimely demise of a Union Minister.
If this Bill becomes law, the CVC will have the duty to submit annual reports to Parliament with statistical information about how it has dealt with the complaints of wrongdoing from and victimisation of whistleblowers. The Government may try to get the Bill passed during the Monsoon session which begins from 5th August.
From its RTI replies, the CVC appears to be completely unprepared to handle the responsibilities required of it under the Whistleblower Bill.
Given its acknowledged lack of human power and resources to compile even basic statistical information about a few whistleblowing complaints, how well it may perform as competent authority under the Whistleblower Protection law is anybody’s guess.
We need to seriously think whether in addition to the CVC other agencies such as the National Human Rights Commission, The Comptroller and Auditor General and such other autonomous bodies should also be made competent authorities for receiving and inquiring into whistleblower complaints. The CVC may not be able to handle the flood of complaints that may come from civil servants once a statutory framework for whistleblower complaints is set up.
By Venkatesh Nayak, Access to Information Programme, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative
