A few weeks ago, the legislature approved law that will protect whistleblowers. Under the law, private and public organisations as well as public authorities have a legal obligation to safeguard a whistleblower’s anonymity and also ensure they do not divulge any information that can be used to identify the person reporting an irregularity. It is a criminal offence to renege on the obligation to protect whistleblower’s anonymity, according to the new law.
It was ironic that in the meantime, two cars belonging to the family of a senior official at the Road Transport Department, parked outside his house, were set ablaze in what police described as an arson attack. The official had provided information related to the importing of damaged luxury cars by certain individuals, who registered them as ‘almost new’. This was in violation of department rules, which oblige importers to declare if a car had been involved in a crash.
The official who uncovered the scam and became the subject of the intimidation tactics was not a whistleblower. He was just a public employee doing his job conscientiously and had asked for his identity to be protected when he reported the case, but quite clearly it was not. Someone at the department or a police officer involved in the investigation of the case, that has been going on for five months, must have revealed his identity to people who wanted to frighten him or exact some form of revenge.
It might not be against any law to reveal the identity of...
The DMK president blamed the AIADMK leader for trying to scuttle Ungaludan Stalin initiative when it was introduced, by filing a petition in the court against it DMK president and Chief Minister M....